


Beyblade AU oneshots junkyard

by misdre



Category: Bakuten Shoot Beyblade, Beyblade
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Chess, Fairy Tale Style, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-28 00:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8422921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misdre/pseuds/misdre
Summary: Will become a collective of my Bakuten Shoot Beyblade AU oneshots. Will mostly be Rei/Max from the second fic onwards. See chapter titles and summaries for details. More character (and possible pairing) tags will be added with more chapters.





	1. Fairy tale monster AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Characters:** All the BBA kids, Takao's PoV  
>  **Pairing:** This is basically Takao/Kai, but is not super shippy honestly.
> 
> Takao lives in a hut surrounded by a scary forest. One day he decides to leave on an adventure to find a silver-haired boy he once saw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for halloween 2015, actually, but it was the first beyfic i ever finished and i felt it wasn't a suitable first one to post for a fandom LOL

Once upon a time, there was a house standing in the midst of the wilderness, surrounded by dense forest, a river flowing between. It was no more than a tiny hut, an ordinary house, and there lived Takao with his grandfather. For they lived all alone, with no other houses in sight, Takao had always dreamed of wondrous adventures on the other side of the river. However, his grandfather deemed it too dangerous, and so Takao spent all his days in the tiny hut, but never did he stop thinking about the wonders beyond home.

The surrounding forest was said to be haunted by beasts and spirits, hence people rarely set foot near the hut that stood in perfect isolation. Only once had Takao seen a figure his age near by, just on the other side of the river, and more often than not found himself wondering about the scene imprinted in his memory, the vivid image of a boy with hair that gleamed with silvery blue. Months went by, a year had gone by, yet Takao still thought back to the lone sight.

 

One day, he determined that the time was ripe: Takao decided to leave for an adventure. For his grandfather was old, it was not at all unusual for him to lay down to bed before sundown. Once the hut had fallen in drowsy silence, Takao packed his one and only bag with what little he felt he needed, took his cap and jacket, and stepped over the doorsill. He had left the safe warmth of the hut behind.

The air was crisp, and a faint breeze blew by as Takao approached an old, wooden bridge – the only means to cross the river that stretched infinitely in both directions, fading into the surrounding woods. Takao remembered his grandfather telling him countless stories, eerie tales of this very river: it imprisoned the drowned and never let them leave its smothering depths, their restless souls wandering in the stream for eternity. The still water looked black.

Takao was not afraid. Filled with confidence, he strode to the bridge.

 

But as soon as he set foot on the arching wood, a frightening sound reached his ears; a hollow voice, a voice not belonging to a human, boomed from somewhere below. That sound seemed to distort air itself, the familiar scenery around him suddenly becoming stranger, the wood under his feet was trembling.

“Get off my bridge or I will gobble you up!”

A shiver shot down Takao's spine. Yet, this was but the first step of his adventure, and he had made up his mind. His features a wee pale, Takao took another step. His surroundings turning ever so twisted, he hobbled onwards, the sky had turned crimson red above, and the voice boomed for a second time.

“Get off my bridge or I will gobble you up!”

“All I want is to get to the other side, that's all!” Takao answered the frightening command. He was scared now, yet his determination didn't falter; even if the world ended, he would not give up his resolution.

The courageous young Takao took another step on the distorted bridge; it was then that something grabbed his foot. Takao's eyes shot down, unfocused. Something hairy was sticking out from under the bridge, its blinding redness blending into the scarlet background. It was a hand.

Takao ran. He kicked the air with all his might and ran. He wasn't far when both his feet got caught in something, he could feel bristly hair against his ankles, he couldn't move anymore. His entire body now trembling in terror, Takao forced himself to glance behind his shoulder.

What he saw was not scary the least. If anything, it was a little goofy. A short creature had appeared on the bridge. Sharp, tangled hair covered it from head to toes, except for its large face resembling a human's. In the middle of its wide forehead, a patch of skin formed the shape of a star. It had large human-like ears and a human-like built, but at its behind dangled a red, hairy tail. The creature, one third of his size, was hanging from his feet.

At once, the bridge was back to how it had always been.

“Me will gobble you up, dammit!” the creature shouted, in a hoarse voice not at all like the ghastly roar from earlier. It seemed angry.

“What the heck are you?” asked Takao.

“Me is the troll living under this bridge, and me eats anyone who tries to cross it!” The creature did possess a formidable set of teeth in its wide mouth. Otherwise, its likeness was that of a small, sullen monkey.

Takao kicked his feet, sending the troll flying; it tumbled down and off the bridge with a mighty splash. Takao was already making his merry way to the other side of the river when the troll climbed back up, peeking from under the bridge with a presence much less bold.

“Wait! Don't go! M-Me wants to gobble you up!”

“If you're hungry, I can share my bread,” Takao suggested. “I bet it's healthier than eating an entire human. I don't think I taste good, I haven't showered in three days.”

The troll shook its red head. “Not hungry.”

“Then why do you wanna eat me?”

The troll fell silent for a moment or two.

“Because you're on me bridge,” it then said. “Nobody ever comes here.”

“I get it now!” said Takao, “You're lonely, so you don't wanna let people go! In that case, you should come with me. What's the point in brooding here under some shabby old bridge? Come on an adventure with me! My name's Takao!”

The troll gave a silent growl, then jumped on its short feet. “Me name's Daichi! Me's coming with you, Takao!”

Thus, Takao continued his journey with a new friend.

 

The setting sun had painted the sky with hues of orange and purple once the unlikely pair had crossed the bridge. The path was hardly visible, so seldom did anyone use it. They followed it towards the forest ahead. Takao threw one last glance at the familiar scenery he was leaving behind; the hut had become awfully small in the distance, even smaller than he remembered.

Together with Daichi, Takao made his way into the forest. He was surprised by just how many trees there suddenly were all around him, and of how many sizes, and how they all looked just a wee different from each other. Whenever he had cast a dreamy look at the forest through the hut's window, all he had seen was a wall of what looked like the same tree many times. How he had been misled by that sight!

The duo marched onwards, and once he had marveled at the wonders of the trees to his heart's content, Takao began to notice that it was gradually becoming darker. The sky far above their heads was still a shade of fading orange, but its light no longer reached them, as if the trees were trying to hide it from view altogether. The forest was swallowing the two of them whole. There was no turning back anymore.

The deeper they walked into the woods, the thicker grew the trees and the less they could see of the path beneath. Before long, Takao was no longer sure if the path even existed. It had become very silent, and every hum in the trees, every rustle nearby seemed to pierce that silence, that's how clearly Takao could hear them. It was quiet, yet the forest felt alive around them. Alive, yet somehow wrong. Something was lurking in the dusk. To banish the overwhelming silence trying to cage them within, Takao asked Daichi whether a boy with silvery blue hair had crossed the bridge. Daichi didn't recall that ever happening. As Takao well knew, humans rarely came by – they were scared away by the stories about the sinister woods and its monsters.

 

Takao didn't know how long they had been walking when they heard something ahead. Not a hum nor a rustle nor a buzz, it was no natural sound, it had the eerie likeness of a human scream. Takao hastened his steps a little.

He heard it again. Someone was screaming, someone not too far away. He could now hear a different sound accompanying it; a flutter of a sort.

The only means of seeing ahead in the dense woods were the odd beams of twilight that made it through the crowns of the trees, forming dimly lit patches on the underbrush. Upon reaching the cause of the miserable sound, Takao could barely see something at the base of a particularly tall tree with a crevice in its stem; but certainly, someone was pleading for help by the tree.

Daichi, with his eyes that were used to the dusk, said: “There's bats, someone's being attacked by a herd of bats there!”

Thus came clear the source of the fluttering sound: the herd was squeaking as a cloud of flapping wings. Without fear, Takao grabbed a nearby branch, one that fit his hand like a sword. He charged forward, yelling, his new weapon at the ready.

The herd let out a deafening screech, and Takao could feel them scatter in every direction in startled confusion. Once dispelled, the herd revealed a small figure crouching on the ground, shaking so violently, Takao could hear its teeth clatter against each other.

“Are you okay?” Takao asked and squatted next to the small person.

“Ye–Ye–Ye–Yes!” the other said in a high-pitched voice, and sat up. Takao could tell he was too small for a human; perhaps this creature was an elf or a sprite of some kind. The small one was wearing a cap just a tad too large for its tiny head, and its clothes seemed to be made of leaves and patches of moss. Half of its face was hidden behind its bushy hair.

“Thank you very much for helping me,” the creature uttered very politely. “Please, if there is anything I can do for you, I would gladly return the favor.”

“Well, first of all, do you have a name?” asked Takao.

“My name is Manabu,” the small creature said, a faint blush on his cheeks barely visible under his thick fringe, “but others call me the professor, for I am very knowledged for my kind.”

“Okay, Professor, if you are so knowledged, can you help us get to the other side of the forest?”

It so turned out that simply getting to the other side was no easy task. They had entered the forest from the west; in the north, there were mountains too difficult for a human to climb, and the forest continued deep into the south. However, to pass through to the east, they would have to cross a cursed lake in the heart of the forest. Takao, armed with a new friend and a new weapon, was not afraid of facing the lake. He was certain that together, they could find a way across.

Professor was willing to join the two on their adventure; however, he was terribly afraid of the dark, so Takao agreed to carry him inside his jacket. Daichi, envious of the new companion, proceeded to continue the journey seated on Takao's head.

 

Takao had many questions to ask Professor, and Professor had much to tell; thus, it was no longer as morbidly silent as before. Professor explained that his kind lived hiding in the trees and some underground, guarding subterranean treasures. He told them about the ancient guardian spirits of the forest, and he warned them about poisonous plants and berries. Excited for his new friend's vast knowledge, Takao inquired about the silvery blue haired boy, almost certain that Professor if anyone would know – alas, even he had never come across such human.

The night grew deeper, leaving the forest veiled in thick darkness. Takao could hardly see where he was walking, relying on Daichi to show the way from time to time. Takao couldn't tell the sky from the treetops anymore, the woods had concealed the sky somewhere above and trapped them in a never ending ebony tunnel, the night was jet-black. Professor fairly warned them of things lurking in the dark.

Deep in thought, Takao wasn't paying attention to his feet. Suddenly, he stepped on something soft and stumbled, almost falling over.

“ _Ouch!_ ” came a shriek from underneath, nearly startling them all out of their remaining senses. Takao jumped back. Something, or rather, someone was rustling at his feet, covered by a blanket of dry leaves.

“What the heck?” Takao yelled himself, hastily replying: “Sorry!”

The victim of his careless footfall sat up on the stash of leaves. It was too dark for Takao to see, but the two smaller companions were able to tell this person was human in appearance, bearing much likeness to Takao in size.

“Huh, how come someone's passing through here?” the voice asked, perplexed. A pale light was ignited in the darkness; the person was holding a small lantern in his hand.

“I'm Takao the human, and I'm on my way to the forest lake,” answered our hero.

“Human?” came a surprised reply, “I thought I was the only one who'd be crazy enough to come to this place!”

Takao helped the other boy on his feet. He had fair hair and fair skin, the boy with a friendly face introduced himself as Max. He told them he had gotten lost in the dark woods after his compass broke and, not knowing which way to go, had fallen asleep.

“How dangerous, for a mere human,” dismayed Professor, “you were lucky to remain in one piece!”

“I was camouflaged,” reasoned the boy. “And unlike you, I have some light on me.”

The bright Max was welcomed to their company so he could find his way back home, and the journey continued.

 

They now had the light of the lantern showing them the path; however, it also cast shades deeper than pure darkness around them, only enhancing the image of the forest closing in on the travelers. Viciously dancing shadows licked the tree trunks as they passed by; Takao couldn't shake off the feeling that they were being followed by some looming presence that hid within those devilish shadows.

In his hand, Takao kept the tree branch at the ready, reacting to the faintest crackle and crinkle. Every now and again he could hear birds rustling somewhere above. In the faraway distance, something was howling into the night; it was a lonesome, frightening sound.

“I have heard of a lone werewolf living somewhere near the mountain range in the north,” Professor spoke in a shaky voice. “But I have never witnessed it myself. Many dangerous things live within these woods. There have been whispers about poison-breathing wild dogs and giant snakes as tall as the trees amongst my folk – some even talk of a wicked demon that devours human souls living somewhere deep, deep within.”

“I have heard tales about it as well,” said Max somberly, “it's a story that parents tell their children to warn them about the forest. Could it be true?”

“I would not rule out the possibility,” Professor said with a shiver.

“A demon...” marveled Takao, feeling a tad shaky himself, clenching his lone weapon, fingers sticky with cold sweat. Daichi was murmuring quietly, shifting anxiously on top of Takao's head.

“But let us lighten up the mood a little,” Max then encouraged the other three, “and not talk about such things! How about you tell us more about yourself, Takao?”

So he did; Takao began to describe his safe yet uneventful life at the small hut with his grandfather, and his dreams about leaving for an adventure, and the silvery blue haired boy he wanted to find. Nobody knew how much time passed; while chatting the time away, they kept walking on and on.

 

Then, wondering if his eyes were fooling him, Takao noticed a faint light ahead. However, something about it was mighty strange. The light looked strangely airy, as if the forest was suddenly enshrouded in mist that emitted a faint gleam itself. Approaching the light that now consumed their surroundings felt like walking into an opal-colored dream.

The trees grew scarce, giving way to the thick fog that obscured their path. Before he knew, Takao realized he was standing by the brink of a lake, as if the very lake had suddenly sprung up right at his feet - it had appeared out of nowhere.

The water was perfectly still, its surface crystal clear, revealing the bottom of the lake that radiated dim light itself, like a sea of stars in the deep.

“So this is the cursed lake?” Takao spoke, astonished.

“It's so beautiful for being cursed, though!” Max worded the other's thoughts.

“Yes,” admitted Professor, “but I'm certain there was something, something about this lake... Something inhabiting it...”

“But see, there is nothing here.”

Takao reached out his arms, and as he did, they suddenly saw movement on the surface. A ripple formed at the center of the lake, spreading in all directions in a steady flow. Then, another followed. The four travelers looked in astonished silence as the ripples were followed by a magnificent whirl of water that arose from the depths. In the middle of the wondrous vortex stood a person: a girl with aquamarine skin and a dress that flowed on the water's surface like a thick cloud of opaque mist.

“What do you want?” the lady prompted, her tone not at all sharing the soft likeness of her appearance.

“We...” began Takao who stood in a momentary daze, “want to get to the other side.”

“Why so?” she demanded.

“To reach the east end of the forest,” explained Professor. “I recall now what they said, about the spirit of a young maiden dwelling in the lake.”

“But miss, you look so very pretty,” said Max, “how come the lake is called cursed?”

The lake spirit placed her slender hands on her hips. “Most travelers get lost in the mist and drown in the lake in their blindness. But sometimes,” her lips were tugged into a sly grin, “it's just so much fun to lure male travelers in and choke them with my own hands. Only handsome ones, though,” she added.

The boys saw it best to not pry into the subject further.

“C–Could you help us cross the lake, please?” Professor asked timidly.

The girl contemplated this plea.

“Fine, you are lucky for I happen to be in a good mood today,” she finally said. As she was about to turn her back on them, Takao suddenly thought of calling out:

“Hey, have you seen a human my age with silvery hair around here?”

“Who knows,” answered the maiden as another whirl of water encircled her. “But if you are heading to the eastern end of the forest, look out for the demon dwelling around those parts. It lures clueless humans like you to its den and eats their souls. And my name is Hiromi, not 'hey'.”

Such were her last words. All of a sudden, not only Hiromi, but the entire lake itself was gone; one blink of an eye and the mist, the water, all of it had vanished into thin air. The four travelers found themselves surrounded by trees once more. At their feet was a form shaped like an arrow emitting the same faint light as the stars at the bottom of the lake. The arrow was, without a doubt, pointing eastwards.

“D-Did she mean the same d-d-demon that we talked about earlier?” asked Professor, burying himself so deep inside Takao's warm jacket, only the tip of his green hat was visible anymore.

“If one of the forest’s spirits herself says it's real, then it has to be...” Max marveled.

“M-Me will gobble it up if it comes near us!!” Daichi boasted, his hoarse voice shaky.

“But we must continue,” Takao decided, leading the way in the arrow's direction. “Don't let Hiromi's help be in vain!”

 

It felt as if they had been consumed by the blackness of the forest anew now that the illuminated lake had vanished. Takao wanted to keep his body and mind as alert as possible, but the relentless darkness was taking its toll on his nerves. Fatigue was gradually setting in. His sense of time was gone – whether they had been on their journey for two or six hours, he couldn't tell. In fact, he had a strange feeling that as soon as he had set foot in these sinister woods, time had stopped altogether.

“Should we take a rest?” Max suggested after a while. It was obvious that Takao was growing weary.

However, he clenched the branch in his hand and shook his head. “Not yet,” he said, “not before we get out of here. I don't want anything to happen to any of you. Can you keep going, Max?”

“Sure,” nodded Max, “but what if you collapse yourself?”

“I'm fine! Let's go, we're almost there!”

So the courageous boys and their two small friends kept walking.

 

And they walked, and they walked, and they walked more still. The silence had grown ever so deafening; Takao couldn't tell if it was his mind playing tricks on him, but no rustling could be heard anymore, he could hear no birds or any living soul anywhere; the only sound was their own feet trampling the dry undergrowth, and their own breathing.

The longer they kept walking, the louder became the beating of Takao's own heart in his ears. His gaze began to wander aimlessly from tree to tree, his steps growing uneven. Takao hadn't paid any heed to the mentions of the demon before, but now, as his body and mind alike felt dull and cold, he found himself plagued by the thought, and his imagination began playing devilish tricks on him; what if they had already walked into the demon's clutches? What if it was slowly draining him to death, sucking life out of him as he walked? Were they still in the real forest, or was it an illusion the demon had weaved around them, like a spider hunting for prey? It must have been so; the more Takao let his mind wander, the stronger the belief grew. The demon would swallow them all whole... It was closing in behind them, closer, closer...

 

Suddenly, the trees were gone. Takao took several heavy steps before he stopped. In front of him was a mat of green, a meadow that carried on to the infinite horizon, illuminated by the moonglow and countless of stars that spread above. They were out of the forest.

“We did it!” cheered Max, “We made it, Takao!”

Takao couldn't help laughing, out of immense relief and at his own frenzied mind. It was all his imagination! Fantasy! Delusion!

“What is the next stage in your plan?” Professor asked, still peeking from inside Takao's jacket. A serene view spread in front of their eyes, a moonlit meadow with nothing much in sight, except...

A curious building stood in the distance. It was an elegant, luxurious mansion, almost like a castle; nothing like Takao had seen before. It was impossible for him to picture a person living in such house. Unless, there wasn't...

“W-What if it's the demon's den...?” Professor worded Takao's very thoughts.

“It totally looks like one, doesn't it?” Max approved cheerily.

The house's demeanor was certainly ghastly enough for a demon to inhabit it. Takao swallowed loudly.

He was about to propose passing the building from as far as they possibly could, but was interrupted by a voice that spoke behind him. A voice that did not belong to any of them.

 

“ _There_ you are.”

 

Takao forced himself to turn around, slowly, every muscle in his body resisting out of fear. There, right behind them, stood a tall human-like figure, but it was clearly not human; Takao could see split pupils, sharp teeth, and large, pointed ears, before he started screaming.

“There it is!! _There it is!!_ ” yelled Professor, tears of fear streaming down his cheeks.

“It caught us! It caught us!” cried Daichi, clutching Takao's hair painfully hard.

The unknown creature before them stood in appalled silence, staring at the screaming lot. In its right hand, it was holding what looked like a giant lily of the valley, its blossoms lit like a set of lanterns.

“What, what caught you?” it inquired once the unnerved travelers stopped yelling.

“You! You caught us!”

“Come again, why would I want to catch a human and a couple of midgets?”

“A–Aren't you a demon...?” asked Takao quietly. “The demon of the eastern woods?”

“Me? I'm but a night fairy,” the creature said.

On second glance, one that was not blinded by panic, Takao did notice how the creature had beautifully translucent wings on its back; its eyes were sharp and golden, its long hair was as dark as the night itself. It certainly bore the likeness of a fairy, if only rather somber.

“Moreover,” it continued, shifting its eyes away from Takao, “you already have a demon right there.”

“What?” Immediately, Takao cast a wild look around; but no matter what, he couldn't see anything but them, standing there at the end of the forest.

With a heavy sigh, the fairy stepped forward. Takao tensed up and took a step back himself; however, the tall creature didn't pay him any notice. Instead, it faced Max, raised its free hand and flicked his nose.

“What are you doing, pretending to be a human again? I was looking all over for you.”

At once, a veil of hundreds of stars was cast over Max, his visage changing as they sparkled around him: his sky blue eyes turned brilliant crimson; two pairs of pitch black, curvy horns grew on his head, two on each side; his hands were suddenly replaced by bizarre-looking hooves.

“But Rei,” he wailed, “I was just getting to the good part...”

“Like eating that human?” guessed the fairy.

“No! Or – well – maybe – but.”

Professor and Daichi, eyes wide and mouths hanging open in silent terror, made haste to back away from their vicinity. Takao, however, stood still.

“I'm sorry,” Max told the human boy sheepishly, “but you didn't see me in the dark, and you were such a fun-looking lot, I couldn't resist playing along. You didn't even acknowledge my will-o-wisps. You do have an appetizing soul, Takao,” a greedy glimmer flashed in Max's eyes for a split second, “but in the end, you're a bit too dense for my taste.”

Takao made a pouty face, but couldn't help a grin tugging at his lips. “Tch, no wonder I had a hunch that the demon was hot on my heels. But you helped us, and didn't do any harm – be a demon or whatever, you're my friend, Max!”

“I can't believe you,” stated the fairy called Rei, “befriending a human like that.”

“If you ask me,” continued Takao, “it's a little unusual for a fairy and a demon to know each other, too.”

The two explained that they both lived around the eastern parts of the forest; Rei tended to the flowers growing in the vast meadows, but only at night. Following his usual pattern, Takao asked him about the silvery blue haired boy he was looking for.

“Hmm,” Rei pondered, tilting his head, “I think I saw someone like that once. It was when I passed by the garden of that house, over there.” And he pointed at the ghastly mansion in the distance.

“Really?!” yelled Takao. For once, he got an actual clue!

“But –” Rei was about to carry on, however, Takao was no longer listening. He picked up his tiny friends – who, especially Professor, still seemed to be in a state of terror because of Max – and already made his way across the meadow mighty fast.

“Finally! Finally!” he chanted. “We're almost there, so let's keep going!”

Thus Max and Rei got left behind, at the east end of the forest.

“But he wasn't a human like you,” finished Rei with a sigh.

 

Unaware of the fairy's remark, Takao dashed through the moonlit greenery, blood rushing in his veins, his tired feet carrying him forward by his new-found vigor alone. Daichi was clutching onto his head once more, Professor peeking from his jacket.

“I,” the forest elf stuttered in weak voice, “I still can't believe, Takao, you just s-s-s-stepped on the demon... You _stepped on_ the demon of the east...”

It didn't take long for Takao to reach the gates of the mansion. Too tall to climb over, he made his way to the stone wall surrounding them instead. Takao got past the walls with ease, and in front of him spread the garden that Rei had mentioned. It was visibly unattended, the overgrown plants wildly competing for space anywhere he looked; the flowers looked black in the shade of the night. However, there was nobody in sight.

The verdure rustled under Takao's feet as he made his way through, glancing around. No light could be seen in any of the mansion's numerous windows, no signs of life anywhere to be found. Even in such darkness, Takao could tell the house was ancient, run-down in its old age. Maybe nobody lived there after all. Takao left the garden behind and looked around the corner, at the back of the mansion.

It was a graveyard. Abandoned, desolate, most tombstones covered in vines that rose from beneath, standing awry. It was a hollow place, forgotten by humanity long ago. And there, in the middle of a row of graves, sat a silvery blue haired figure on a grave.

At once, Takao knew it was the same person he had seen years ago. But as he looked at him now, Takao understood the silvery glow of his hair that was burned in his memory so: the person in front of him emitted a weak radiance that shone through his lucid form. The ghost was wearing a scarf, white like snow against the darkness.

He turned to face Takao with a grim expression. “What do you want?” he asked in a deep voice.

Takao stepped into sight from behind the building. “I'm Takao and I came here looking for you!” he answered promptly.

The ghost gave him a dubious look.

“Don't you remember me?” Takao asked in slight dismay, “I saw you by the west end of the forest, where I live.”

The other turned his head away. “That puny house?”

“Well, I guess it's puny compared to _this_.” Takao cast his eyes upwards at the enormous, castle-like mansion looming over him. “Is this your house?”

There was no response for a few, silent seconds.

“It used to be,” the ghost then replied.

“When you were alive?” asked Takao.

“It's where I once lived, and was once killed. Now, leave.”

Takao had no intention to leave. He took another step forward.

“I couldn't forget you, and I came all this way through the forest, and I saw all kinds of things along the way, bats and lakes and I even met a demon, but I finally found you.” Wearing a cheery grin, Takao pointed at the troll on his head. “This is Daichi, he tried to eat me but he's my friend now. And this is...”

Professor was no longer inside his jacket; he had stayed behind the corner, curled into a ball, and he was so very scared.

“That's Professor, but he probably doesn't like ghosts,” Takao concluded. “We came here together to find you!”

“Why?” inquired the ghost haughtily.

“Why, well...” The question wasn't entirely unfounded. In fact, it made Takao think, what was he to do now that he had found what he was looking for? He had seeked an adventure, and got one; he had seeked this person, and found him. What now?

“What's your name?” Takao decided to ask.

“Kai,” answered the ghost.

“Okay, Kai. I've made up my mind. Come with me and let's go home!”

Kai looked at Takao. “Why would I come with you?”

To which Takao replied, “You're here all alone, and I'm all alone at home with my grandpa, and if you're even half as bored as I am, then I know you would go through that hideous forest just to find someone to be with.”

The ghost stayed silent. He lifted the gaze of his colorless eyes to the moon that hung high on the black sky.

“I've been here for a long, long time,” Kai finally said, “since before you or anyone you have met was born. But you are the first one who has ever come to take me away from here.”

“Come with me,” proposed Takao and reached out his hand, “and you can tell me everything about all that long, long time! And I'll tell you everything about my much shorter but probably much nicer time!”

And so it happened that Takao's adventure was over, and he was ready to return home, with all his new friends by his side. The night was almost over.

 

Takao, carrying Daichi and Professor and followed by Kai, made his way back to where the forest began to grow. There he met Rei, who was willing to lend him his magic; instead of trampling through the forest once more, Takao found himself soaring through the sky, viewing the very forest from up high. The treetops looked like a carpet of brilliant green underneath. The terror of the woods felt so distant now, and behind them, a new day dawned in the faraway horizon.

They all landed in front of Takao's house: Takao carrying Professor – who, terrified of heights, had tightly latched himself onto his taller friend, his tiny teeth clattering – and Daichi, and Kai, Max and Rei, who had the ability to fly themselves. Together, the six formed the strangest party, a colorful sight in front of the humble shack that was the Kinomiya residence.

Takao was beyond excited to introduce all his new friends to his grandfather. However, as he so proposed, he was met with wistful smiles; Max shook his horned head at him.

“You can't, Takao – we aren't human, you aren't even supposed to see us here. Besides...”

“The night is nearly gone,” continued Rei, his wings quivering a little, ”we are not beings of daylight. We need to go.”

“But will I see you again?” asked Takao, to which they didn't answer. Nevertheless, he was sure he would. One day, he would go back to see Hiromi again as well.

The soft light of dawn illuminated the sky with blue and gold, the darkness had faded away. Takao, never so happy to be home, climbed to his bed, falling asleep as soon as he closed his eyes. And he dreamed of a bloodcurdling troll under the bridge who was actually very small and very loud, and a smart forest elf who was scared of the dark, and a playful but vengeful girl living in a magical lake; a demon that devoured human souls but was the kindest person he ever knew, a fairy whose hair was like the night sky, and a sulky ghost that had been alone for a very, very long time. And Takao knew he could meet them again any time he so wished.

 

Takao lived a simple life with his grandfather, spending his days helping around the house; and every evening, after his grandfather had gone to bed, would Takao sit on the porch of the tiny hut, and Kai would sit next to him, and they would talk about times long gone and times yet to come. And they all lived happily ever after.


	2. Coffee shop AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Characters:** Rei, Max, and Max's dad  
>  **Pairing:** Rei/Max
> 
> Rei goes to Judy's coffee shop in order to hit on her, as prompted by his classmates, but falls for her son instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the reason why this abomination even exists is that I saw a tumblr post complaining about people writing coffee shop AUs, because "there are so many of every ship already". and I wanted there to exist a generic rei/max coffee shop AU out of spite. it's like, one of the necessities on my way to make rei/max an established pairing in the fandom.
> 
> note that "high school" here refers to Japanese hs, so ages 16 and up. also, home schooling might not exist at this level of education, but just ignore that for convenience here.

Kon Rei, second year exchange student in high school, had an unfortunate trait of being very proud. It was unfortunate because it often led him into rather strange situations, all because he was too proud to refuse any challenge, no matter how impossible. He was also stubborn, and even if he kept failing over and over again, to him, there was always a next time to prove himself. And, he was easy to provoke as well.

Through Rei's trial and error, his Japanese classmates had learned another consistent trait: he had a flirty personality, but was hopelessly terrible at actually talking to women. While his unconventional looks seemed to attract them, his social awkwardness and dull acting banished anyone just as fast as they has appeared. Rei liked to boast otherwise, but he'd never done as much as been on a date, and the most physical contact he'd ever had with a girl was his childhood friend Mao accidentally punching him in the face in a fit of rage.

This, then, contributed to the newest idea that his classmates had come up with, and found irresistibly funny: prompting Rei to hit on Judy Mizuhara – if he could get anywhere near her first, of course.

Judy was something of a local celebrity, a rich American former model and current chemist, university professor, and recently, a coffee shop owner. She had managed to keep most of her personal affairs private, and high school aged kids hardly remembered her past days of glory; to them, she had made a name for herself as “that hot teacher at the university”. Long story short, all they knew about her was that she was rich, American, and very attractive.

Earlier that year, Judy Mizuhara opening a coffee shop in town had made it to the headlines in local news. It didn't sound too unreasonable for a person of such wealth to ditch her regular job and start a new business on a whim. The high schoolers reckoned she could do whatever she wanted, including buying a coffee shop.

And this turned into the next cataclysm that Rei deliberately subjected himself to. Of course he could get close enough to Judy Mizuhara, and of course he could hit on her, he was an expert at flirting after all, and mature for his age. Of course.

He had never been to a coffee shop before in his life, he didn't even drink coffee, but he considered it a part of the challenge as he entered the place for the very first time. An old-fashioned bell chimed him welcome.

It wasn't a large shop. Located at a minor street corner, it looked surprisingly humble outside. Rei had expected something pristine and high class, but faced a cramped space decorated with a sort of subtle feminine charm as he stepped inside the shop. It was all unexpectedly... old-fashioned.

Today was Monday, right after classes, and only two other people were sitting by a window table as he walked across the shop, straight to its wooden counter. It had an assortment of colourful pastries on display, and a coffee menu in a slanted stand next to them. At least it was all cheap. It was also all very American, or such was Rei's assumption, at least.

Momentarily lost in the marvelous sight of several rows of muffins and doughnuts, Rei startled a little as a brisk voice called out to him: “Hello! What can I get you today?”

The worker behind the counter was certainly not Judy Mizuhara. It was a boy, and a fairly young-looking one at that; if it wasn't for the black and white barista uniform he was wearing, Rei wouldn't have realised he was addressing a member of the staff in the first place.

“I'll have,” Rei mumbled without greeting the boy back, darting his eyes at the menu, “a matcha latte, thanks.” He had only ever had plain green tea if anything, and didn't know a thing about coffee, but he figured something with matcha had to bear some kind of resemblance to the tea he best knew.

“And a caramel glazed doughnut,” he added quickly.

“Thank you! That's six hundred yen! Just a moment.”

Rei's gaze kept wandering around the shop as the bizarrely young barista (maybe he was just standing in for someone else for a bit?) was preparing the coffee. He was perfectly mentally prepared for meeting Judy Mizuhara in person, he had rehearsed his greatest pick-up lines all day, and now he kept shifting his weight back and forth his feet, trying not to break into a nervous sweat. He barely paid attention to the fair-haired boy giving him his coffee and a caramel glazed doughnut, wishing him a delicious time with his order in English.

It certainly didn't seem like Judy was around at the shop. In retrospect, even if she owned the place, it had been a stupid assumption that she'd be there at any time of the day. The more Rei thought about it, the worse his impulsive plan was beginning to sound to himself – was there any guarantee that she worked there in the first place? She could just be the legal owner on paper, couldn't she? Maybe she even owned several businesses. The puny coffee shop didn't seem like the place for someone like her, a successful scientist. For now, however, Rei decided to settle down to a table rather close to the counter, to keep an eye on the door at the very back of the shop, just in case he'd catch a glimpse of her at some point. It was fast becoming a dare of even meeting Judy Mizuhara in the first place.

If only Rei hadn't been so stubbornly proud and didn't take everything so terribly seriously, he wouldn't now have been there making an idiot of himself.

While sitting at his lone table, Rei looked down at the cup set in front of him. Its contents were a lovely shade of fresh matcha green, and the white foam at the top had been drawn into the shape of a heart in the middle. It looked pretty cute, now that he paid it proper attention. He took a wary sip from the cup. The taste was mellow and tea-like enough, he couldn't really call it good, but it wasn't terrible either. The subtle taste went well with the sugary sweet doughnut, though. The doughnut was pretty great, he could well see it as something iconic to the rich taste of America. And it was so cheap!

Apart from marvelling at this delicacy and spying on the back door, Rei didn't exactly have anything to do. Because of this, he more or less deliberately ended up observing the worker boy who, yes, was still there, behind the wooden counter, all alone. The bell at the door chimed every now and then as more people entered the shop; the number of customers seemed to steadily increase towards late afternoon. And every time people walked up to the counter, the blond boy greeted them cheerily, the same goofy smile across his face.

“Hi there, what can I get you today?”

Some time had already passed, yet Rei still hadn't seen any other workers around. Was it even legal to let a kid handle a business all alone? But the boy didn't seem to be having any trouble taking the orders and working as a barista – actually, the longer Rei kept following him, the better he noticed how _fast_ the boy was at his job. And the more customers came in, the clearer it became that everyone here was already acquainted with the boy, and he was equally friendly with all of them. Rei must have been an odd one out, not being a frequenter of the shop... But did this mean that the boy wasn't merely filling in for someone, nor helping out...? He was an actual employee...?

Now that Rei looked at the boy more carefully, he realised his hair was just as fair and eyes just as blue as he knew Judy Mizuhara's to be. Maybe they were related? It wasn't that strange if Judy had hired a relative's kid to help out at the shop, right? He certainly looked American, but he had spoken Japanese.

And then, all of a sudden, the boy turned to look back to him. Startled, Rei blinked his own golden brown eyes and shifted them back to his now empty cup. God, it was rude to stare at someone, wasn't it? He'd been too deep in thought to even notice doing it. Not that the boy had looked judgmental – he only seemed to wear a smile.

But now that the eye contact had already happened, and the counter had just cleared from other customers, Rei decided to get up and get another cup of that matcha thing. And maybe another doughnut...

He calmly stated his order at the counter, ignoring his ears feeling a tad hot from embarrassment.

“Sure thing! I'll give you a small discount for the second cup! If you keep buying enough, you'll eventually get one for free! Hooray!”

Rei mumbled his thanks and retreated back to his table. And the boy bid him another “delicious time”. All the ridiculous things the boy kept spouting drew a small, uncontrollable smile out of Rei.

The blond's bubbly demeanor was pretty uplifting, he had to admit.

* * *

Rei didn't manage to see Judy Mizuhara that day. Despite the promise of free coffee, he left the shop after his second cup, and second doughnut.

He was nowhere near ready to give up, not at all. He went back the next day, a bit later in the evening this time. It was worth trying, just in case she only did closing hours. Just in case.

She did not.

The bell at the door chimed cheerfully as Rei stepped in, but the lighting inside the shop had been changed for the evening, it was now dimly lit and noticeably more atmospheric. It was very cozy now. And this time, most of the tables were already taken. A chatty murmur surrounded Rei as he made his way to the counter. He felt just as out of place as he had yesterday.

There he was again, the young barista with fair hair and very blue eyes.

The boy gave him a wide smile as he noticed him approaching, setting aside a cup he'd been wiping dry. “Hi! What can I get you tonight?”

“I'll have matcha latte and a...” Rei's eyes wandered off to the pastries on display, only to find it significantly emptier than the day before. Disappointment.

“Sorry, everything but chocolate glazed doughnuts are sold out today,” the blond said apologetically. “Do you want one of those, though?”

“No thanks, I can't eat chocolate,” Rei said truthfully, “just a matcha latte then.”

“Coming right up!”

The lack of doughnuts was discouraging. They had been really good. Rei quietly decided that since it didn't seem that Judy Mizuhara was around at this hour, he'd have to come in earlier from now on.

Was he there for the doughnuts, or for Judy? The line drawn between the two was already fading away at the back of his mind.

Once he was handed the green latte again, and wished yet another “delicious time” (to which he replied an amused “thanks”), Rei made his way to one of the few vacant seats. He couldn't keep an eye on the back door from the angle he was now sitting in. It was, however, a good one for stealthily observing the counter from behind other people.

It was only after Rei had comfortably settled down at his table that he noticed a lone piece of wrapped caramel on the plate next to the latte. There hadn't been any yesterday.

“ _Did he put it there just for me?”_

Maybe so.

Tonight, Rei had brought a book with him to combat the awkwardness of sitting there with nothing to actually do. What a perfect disguise. Nobody would ever notice that all he did was spy on the counter, with an open book on his table.

The blond boy really seemed to be working the shift all alone again. Even with hands full of work, he retained that goofy smile, as well as that cheerful, light-hearted attitude that seemed to spread a warmth of its own in the small shop. With the boy's radiant personality, the place didn't feel half as dark as it actually was.

But Rei couldn't help but wonder if he had been working there alone all day.

As if to answer his growing concerns about whether it was healthy for a kid to work so late in such a place, another employee finally emerged through the back door. But again, it was not Judy Mizuhara – it was actually the very opposite of her. The new face was a bearded man, approximately in his forties, wearing an apron. And like the boy, he wasn't exactly the kind of person Rei expected to be working in a coffee shop.

Rei had assumed that the bearded man had come to take the job over, but quarter an hour later, the young boy was still there; the two were working together in perfect harmony. Rei's cup had been empty for a while already, so he strode back to the counter now, a bit curious to hear any of the exchange between the two unlikely baristas.

The older man happened to be standing in the front as Rei was approaching. “And what can I get you here?” he asked in a friendly tone. Unlike the boy, his skin was very tanned.

“A matcha latte...” Rei said half-heartedly; he noticed that the boy had begun preparing one before he even opened his mouth.

“I'm gonna handle it,” the boy now announced. The older man took the yen Rei offered, while turning to observe the younger worker with a frown.

“Max, what're you doing with the foam?! Did you forget the design?”

“Don't sweat the details. There you go! And have a delicious time!”

Rei got his green latte and a dazzling smile. Now he also had the boy's name.

“And you really should just end your shift already,” the man re-commenced his scolding while Rei, very slowly, made his way back to the table, “you _know_ your mother doesn't really want you to work here this late.”

”I just like helping out. It's nicer than doing homework at home.”

“Don't say that! Homework is important! And Max, your tie is crooked again!”

And then he couldn't conveniently eavesdrop on them anymore. From the way the man had mentioned the boy's – Max's – mother, Rei could only assume he was his father. Or maybe uncle? They honestly didn't look anything alike, with how pale and fair and small-built Max was. He must have been at least half if not mostly American, and the older man looked very Japanese. What a mystery. Perhaps they weren't related by blood after all?

Rei didn't get much reading done before he decided to order a third latte. The taste had yet to really win him over, but nevertheless, he found himself a little addicted to it. Or maybe he didn't really care about the coffee, maybe he just wanted to go up to the counter again to satiate his curiosity.

The coffee shop was now the busiest he had so far witnessed it. When it was Rei's turn to place his order, the older man said they'd bring the coffee to his table because they had quite a few orders stacked up by now.

And so, several minutes later, Max walked over to bring him the third matcha latte, setting it carefully next to the book. The foam was in the familiar heart shape, and next to the cup was a piece of caramel again.

“Here you are! Ah, I knew it,” Max then exclaimed, stopping to look at the book that Rei had barely read two pages of so far, “you're from China, right? I thought I heard that in your accent.”

“Y-Yeah,” Rei admitted, a bit dumbfounded by the last remark – after all, Rei had barely said a word to him so far, and what little he had said was mostly “matcha latte”. “You can tell?”

“Sure I can! But what I can't tell is a single word of Chinese – what are you reading?”

“It's a book on European art history...”

And that was the end of their first more or less proper conversation, mostly due to the older man yelling at Max to stop dawdling around and get back to work. It could have been Rei imagining things, but he thought Max seemed a bit reluctant to leave his table, even while giving the man a loud “okaaaay” in response.

But maybe he did just imagine it.

Rei spent a while longer sitting in the coffee shop, sipping on his latte and not getting a whole lot of reading done, instead staring at the book while his thoughts lingered on the notion that his Chinese accent came off so strong.

* * *

Three more days passed. Rei had yet to see even a glance of Judy Mizuhara, but he nevertheless kept going back to the coffee shop, just in case. He was all too stubborn to give up and admit she didn't actually work any shifts there, because there was the possibility that his classmates already knew all about it, and he didn't want to give them the satisfaction of succeeding in fooling him. Or maybe they didn't know, and then he could as well construct some kind of story about it on his own. Though admittedly, he wasn't very good at lying; rather, he was the kind of person who ended up being honest in situations where lying would have served him better. Maybe, just maybe he still stood a chance of eventually meeting her. Such was the train of Rei's thought as he made his way to the small coffee shop once again.

He had been talking with Max quite a lot more since their first encounters. Max seemed to have a chatty personality, so he now initiated a conversation whenever Rei turned up at the counter. It was mostly small-talk concerning Rei himself, which school he attended, what he studied, why he had come to Japan...

And Rei was awfully curious about Max himself, he sure was, but it would have felt strange for a customer to be asking things about an employee. That's why, even now, the young barista was really just a mystery to Rei. Regardless, meeting him had more or less become the highlight of Rei's day. He could see why people kept coming back to the humble shop to exchange a few words with Max, as well as to enjoy the delicious American baked goodies.

Taking all of this in consideration, it was nothing short of a letdown when Rei stepped through the chiming door that afternoon, and noticed the old Japanese man standing all alone behind the wooden counter. His steps heavier than usual, Rei made his way to the counter.

“Hello!” the man said – Rei could tell he recognised him by now, which wasn't exactly difficult. “And what can I get you today?”

“I, I'll have a matcha latte and a caramel doughnut, please,” Rei replied politely, throwing impatient glances at the back door, in hopes of seeing Max appear after all, but he did not.

The older man noticed this.

“Looking for Max, aren't you?” he asked while preparing a cup. “His lessons are a bit late today. Math, if I remember right. Usually he comes here as soon as he's finished.”

“Ah... A lesson?” Rei repeated, confused. He hadn't meant to pry into things, or to express his curiosity in the first place, but he was all too curious to remember good manners.

“Yes, he's home schooled so he takes lessons at home instead of going to school. Otherwise he could have been your classmate, who knows.”

It took Rei a few moments to process what he had just heard.

Classmate? Max could have been Rei's classmate? Wouldn't that have meant _that they were the same age?_

“Um,” Rei stuttered, “so even if he's homeschooled, Max is... technically in high school...?”

“Well, technically yes, you could say so,” the man reasoned and set the cup down on a trail, reaching out for one of the doughnuts on display next. “He's a smart boy, but he seems to have developed a preference for helping out here at the shop over studying. I guess he takes after me instead of his mother after all. I've always been a worker. This is our family business, you see. I guess he's become the shop's mascot by now? Our boy's always been good with people.”

Rei was now staring wide-eyed at the man in front of him, no longer concerned about appearances. “Family business?” he repeated again. “But Judy Mizuhara owns this shop, doesn't she...?”

“Well, sure, she's one of the co-owners,” the man explained, “it's usually Judy whose name makes it to the news. That's just the kind of legacy she's got in town. But I own this place with her, and since Max is our only son, he helps out at most times. Now look at me, I'm just running my mouth, aren't I? That makes six hundred yen.”

Rei took his latte and his doughnut, muttered a thank-you and tottered to the nearest table, flopping down in the chair, a dumbfounded expression on his face.

Why had he not considered that Max was Judy Mizuhara's son? The old man was Judy's Japanese husband, and Max was their son, and he worked there because it was their family business... It all made so much sense, yet he hadn't even considered it once. It was so obvious.

And all this time, he had taken Max for a 14-year-old or so, when they were actually the same age.

Max was a Mizuhara, and he was Rei's age.

This was much more to digest than just a coffee and a caramel glazed doughnut. After sitting there too bewildered to move a muscle, Rei straightened his back and reached for the matcha latte. He wasn't sure how to go about his plans now, he was more than embarrassed knowing that he had first walked into the coffee shop to hit on a married woman – and a mother.

Maybe the familiar, mild taste of the coffee would help him calm down.

Except it didn't taste quite the same this time, and just when he was taking a sip, he realised that it didn't _look_ the same either. Yes, the picture drawn with the foam was now a leaf. Admittedly it was much more detailed and probably required thrice the effort to draw, but... it sure was a leaf. It wasn't the heart he was used to.

Rei felt strange. It wasn't like he'd been to the coffee shop more than five times. It was five meaningless days of his life, and he didn't even know these people or anything about them, but for some reason all this newly gained information felt heavy as it was sinking in, and it all made his chest feel strangely tight. It was just all around _weird_.

Rei hadn't even had any real interest in Judy Mizuhara. He had just wanted to prove that he was above his classmates' expectations. He regretted ever taking this silly idea so seriously – of course, he was aware it was all because of his naïve, boyish fantasies of basking in glory and respect for even just a short moment. It had felt like rather harmless fun at first, but it had all been stupid from the beginning, just so very stupid. He now accepted the blow to his idiotic pride that had gotten him into this situation in the first place.

After a while, Rei stood up, leaving his cup half full, and stormed out of the coffee shop, his head hanging low.

* * *

But the next Monday, Rei found himself greeted by the chime at the door again.

He had decided to forget all about the dare concerning Judy. At school, he'd pretend he never even tried. He'd avoid his classmates and their suggestions and jokes, he'd just ignore the whole subject, and forget about whatever awkward mental images he'd already formed the day he first visited the coffee shop. It was really just a better idea to forget all about it for good, if he didn't want his experience of studying in Japan to turn into a complete nightmare.

Except that something about the coffee shop kept bothering him; and before he knew, his feet had taken him there once again, once classes were over for the day.

Well, it was true that the matcha latte had really grown on him, and the doughnuts were also great and worth going back to the shop for. But... something about the tiny family running it had also left him curious, and somewhat invested. It's not like Rei even knew them... but after just a few short days, he had begun to feel like he did. And there was just something so charming about the small eccentric coffee shop, so unremarkable that it had become special to him.

As he stepped inside the now-familiar shop, and noticed that the equally familiar fair-haired barista was behind the counter like usual, Rei's legs started feeling strangely rubbery all of a sudden. He half floated across the shop, to be greeted by that cheerfully goofy face.

“Hi, nice to see you again! Taking the usual?”

Yes, Rei took the usual. The latte may have been good and the doughnuts excellent, but the highlight of his usual order had to be Max's friendly smile, free of charge. They hadn't even talked that much, Rei couldn't really call Max his friend when all they did was exchange a few words at a coffee shop, so why would he feel that way, really?

Yes, why would he? As honest as he was by nature, Rei still couldn't quite tell.

The latte looked right again, with a white heart on top.

“Dad told me you were curious about Mama,” Max suddenly said, while taking a caramel glazed doughnut from the shelf on display. “I guess most people have heard about her around here?”

“Yeah,” Rei admitted. “Actually, she's the reason I came here in the first place.”

“Really? Then it's gotta be a disappointment that it's just me and my dad here,” Max said with a laugh, and accepted the usual six hundred yen from Rei.

“No,” Rei said immediately, “not at all.”

“Mama's hands are usually full, because she works at the university. I was wondering if you wouldn't come back anymore after hearing that she doesn't work here herself.”

Rei hadn't turned up during the weekend, it was true.

“Well, here I am again,” he simply said.

And Max gave him a smile – but not the goofy one, not the one every customer in the shop got for free whenever they stepped inside. It was a smile of gratitude, warm and serene, and it was enough to make Rei so very glad he had decided to come back.

Rei gave a smile of his own in return, then turned away to move to one of the tables. He had a habit of choosing the one he had taken on his first day in the shop, if it was vacant. And it was, as there weren't many customers around in the early afternoon.

Rei had brought the book with him again, with the actual intention of reading it this time, and laid it on the table in front of him.

And then, he didn't read it any more than he had on any of the previous days.

Max seemed busy enough despite the quiet hour; he kept running back and forth the back room and the counter, arranging and cleaning things, putting new pastries on display, and apparently fighting a malfunctioning cash machine every now and then. His messy blonde hair was sticking up a bit more than usual. Observing the range of expressions on his freckled face was nothing short from entertaining, all while he was immersed in his work. And the tie of his uniform was crooked again. The stylish uniform, which included a dress shirt, a vest and a tie, was really somewhat out of place in the otherwise humble coffee shop, but Rei found himself thinking it suited Max rather well, with his conventionally western looks... Yes, it looked pretty cute, actually... Max really did... look... cute.

“ _Wait, wait, wait,”_ Rei yelled internally to himself, feeling a sudden warmth on his face, “ _it's really weird for a guy to think that about another guy, isn't it? Isn't it?? Is it not??”_

Was it, really?

Rei ate the caramel glazed doughnut so fast he could as well have choked on it, and then he jumped up and wanted another one, as soon as possible.

In other words, some minute later Max was making him another cup of matcha latte. As he did, he asked in his usual chatty manner: “Making any progress? With the art history book?”

“Ah, no, not really – it's, um, not very interesting.”

“Do you have to read it?”

“For an exam, yeah, I'm a bit behind in my schedule.” It was all his own fault, though. And several cups of matcha latte. And maybe a certain blond barista.

“How about an extra doughnut and just taking it easy?” Max suggested and slipped one of the smaller donuts on Rei's tray. Then, he winked. “I'd love to see your pretty smile more often.”

Rei's face, which already had a light pink flush, took a turn into a shade of deeper red as the other boy simply turned back to his work, whistling as he went.

* * *

The moment he had laid his eyes on the new face in the shop, Max had been sold.

Most of the Mizuhara family coffee shop's customers were acquaintances of his parents. It was a small side business while Judy worked full-time at the university – his father, Tarou, had had a hobby shop at home, but it was recently shut down as he felt like he wanted to try something new. And Max's parents happened to share a passion for good coffee and greasy American pastries.

This is why it was rather exciting to see someone like this – someone who was both new and around Max's age – enter the shop for a change. The newcomer had stunningly long hair and a pair of golden eyes unlike anything Max had ever seen, and he looked so lost as he walked into the shop, that alone was terribly charming to him. Like a sheep – a black sheep – that had lost sight of the rest of the herd, and happened to stumble into their coffee shop.

Drawing a heart shape on the latte was a silly prank Max pulled out of impulse and sudden enchantment, but he was amazed that the guy seemed perfectly content with it; and then he just couldn't resist doing it every time, even when his father scolded him for it.

Rei was obviously clueless about it, but he had become quite the topic in the Mizuhara family by now. Both Max and his father were curious to boot about the Chinese customer who kept coming back – albeit their curiosity stemmed from very different places.

Max was much more observant than he let show with his carefree demeanor; he was more than aware of the way Rei kept throwing shy glances at him from his table near the counter. Sometimes, Max had taken notice, Rei outright stared at him – probably by accident, lost in thought. It was a bit strange, but pleased Max greatly nevertheless. He had clearly caught Rei's interest, too.

And Max was eager to test how far that interest would go.

* * *

“ _Is he flirting with me? He totally is flirting with me, is he not? Oh God, he is flirting with me.”_

This was the approximate thought process storming inside Rei's head at the moment.

The fact alone was enough for Rei to feel bewildered, but Max acted at such ease, it obviously didn't bother him to flirt with another guy. Rei hadn't even considered it possible before. But it wasn't like he had ever had any luck flirting with girls, either. In fact, this was the first time someone was deliberately showing any interest in him. (He tended to feign ignorance over the memory of his childhood friend, the same who was to punch him in the face one day, confessing her feelings when they were younger, to which Rei had only answered that she was quite alright but he preferred books over her.)

Rei felt a bit dizzy as he held onto his cup of matcha latte, with a heart on it still. Right, hadn't Max's father called him out for making it a heart that one time? So it wasn't supposed to be there? But every single cup, save for the ones the father had prepared for him, had had a heart on them.

Every single cup...

Slowly, Rei lifted his eyes from the heart. Thank God, Max had his back turned to him now. For a while, Rei only stared at the back of his blond head, not sure what to think. Much like the foamy heart in the cup he was holding in a shaky hand, Rei's own heart still hadn't calmed down. The feeling was very different from the typical rush of adrenaline that made his heart race. But, he didn't dislike this feeling.

He had escaped back to his table out of not really knowing what he was supposed to do. After sitting down for a while, and taking his time drinking the calming matcha coffee while sorting his thoughts out, Rei's usual confidence began creeping back to him, bit by bit. He was aware himself that he sometimes got a bit too emotional over things, but this wasn't how he wanted to be.

The original purpose of him ever stepping inside the coffee shop rose back to his mind. Maybe things hadn't gone exactly like planned, but.

Rei stood up and strode back to the counter, and Max turned over to face him, the corners of his mouth twisted in a peculiar grin. He had probably known that Rei couldn't resist eventually coming back once more. He was pulled in like a magnet.

“Say...” Rei began, “when does your shift end? Do you have some time after it?”

Max was about to open his mouth, when his father suddenly emerged through the back door and slammed his enormous hand on his son's thin shoulder. “It ended already!” the older man boomed. “Max, why don't you grab a cuppa and go join our new frequenter for a while? It's on the house, your mother won't get mad for just one cup.”

“Fine, fine, stop pushing me...” Max had crouched over a bit, now looking up to Rei again, “Wait a sec and I'll go change my clothes, okay?”

“Okay,” Rei said with a smile – Max and his father's antics were always highly entertaining.

Max zoomed out of the room, and several minutes later, which his father had used to make them drinks, he came back wearing a green t-shirt and a pair of loose, orange pants. Rei hadn't ever seen him wearing anything but the black and white uniform, now that he thought about it; this outfit was such a contrasting blot of bright colours in comparison. And Rei only ever wore his school uniform when he came to the shop.

He'd need to dress in something better on his next day off.

It felt strange to be accompanied by Max as he returned to his usual table. The book on art history was still laying open in the middle of it. Rei slammed it shut with a loud 'thud'.

“All right,” he then said firmly and smiled. “Now I want to know everything about you, Max.”

* * *

From the following week onwards, Max suddenly made it a habit to help out at the shop during the closing hours. His excuse to his parents was that it helped him focus on his studies during the day. They considered it perfectly plausible, even favourable.

He would serve the last customers, clean the tables, wipe the floors, lock the door, then put the keys in the pocket of his work pants. Which he didn't really need to do, as he was to take said pants off shortly after anyway. And some nights, they were followed by a number of other pieces of clothing, from him and Rei both.

“You really need to stop saying that delicious time thing every single time,” Rei pointed out one such night, his back against the wooden counter. Max, who was leaning on him, replied with an impish grin while lazily combing his long hair with his fingers.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because it sounds ridiculous. Frankly, I never knew if I was supposed to laugh or not.”

“I bet you love it anyway.” And then Max forced Rei to shut his mouth with his own sugary sweet lips.


	3. Soulmate AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Characters:** Max, Rei, Takao, Hiromi, Kyouju, Kai  
>  **Pairing:** Rei/Max; there's a Takao/Kai in there if you squint
> 
> Max learns about the concept of soulmates from a book he borrows from Hiromi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is meant to be a minimalistic, surreal-ish little story. i'm not really even into the soulmate thing because it feels so overly cheesy to me, but a friend reblogged a bunch of soulmate AU prompts on tumblr and i just had to browse through them anyway, and there was one that just kind of jumped at me like "WRITE MEEEE" so i did.

Max wasn't sure if it was the first time he'd met him, but his first vivid memory of seeing him was on a train packed with people. He had been sitting on one of the window seats; Max had noticed him while walking past, on his way to the other end of the car. He didn't remember what he was walking across the car for, but the image of the long-haired boy on the window seat had burned itself into his memory instead. He only paid attention to the window, he hadn't noticed Max.

From that fleeting moment onwards, Max began seeing him more and more often. Or maybe he had always been there, blending into the background like a shadow. But now he was definitely there. He always stood out in the crowd. Their paths kept inevitably crossing each other's, no matter where Max found himself at.

One time, Max had been running, just running as fast as he could from a pursuer he couldn't quite identify, and suddenly he had been there, running by his side, matching his pace easily.

“There's a cliff ahead,” the boy had said, “you'd better slow down. I can tell because this is my dream.”

“No,” Max had replied, “this is _my_ dream.”

And then he had grabbed Max’s arm and jumped off the cliff with him, facing the brilliantly blue sky while falling, and he had definitely felt his stomach contracting the way it would in real life when he was violently pulled by the forces of gravity; and then they landed in water with a splash, and Max could tell he was safe again.

“Okay, I guess this has to be your dream,” his now-soaked companion had said with a dissatisfied expression. “Because I would never consider this a good solution, ever.”

And Max had laughed, and then he woke up.

* * *

“What're you thinking 'bout, Max? You should see your dopey face.”

Max snapped out of his thoughts and turned to look at his friends, who were all now staring at him. Takao was currently stuffing his lunch in his face, and pointed his chopsticks at Max judgingly.

“Don't tell me it's one of those weirdo dreams again? I worry 'bout you sometimes, Max.”

“Swallow your food before talking, for God's sake,” Hiromi nagged next to him.

“Takao...” Professor said cautiously.

“Yes, actually,” Max replied chipperly, not minding Takao's prejudiced tone. Remembering the existence of his own lunch, he began dipping some fries in mayonnaise, without care in the world.

“Well, don't you agree it's a bit weird?” Takao sought consensus from the whole group. “Dreaming about the same imaginary guy over and over? What are you, obsessed? With a dream dude?”

“His name is Rei,” Max said patiently.

“You had a dream about him introducing himself??”

“No, he never did, but I just... know that's his name.”

Takao groaned into his food, but Professor gave Max an accepting nod. “I am often aware of things in my dreams with no actual former knowledge. And sometimes there are locations that feel familiar to me, when I have never been to such places in reality.”

Hiromi leaned her chin on her hands. “I kind of like the thought of that,” she said. “What if the dreams are trying to tell you something?”

“Oh, great, now you're giving Hiromi those kinda ideas again,” Takao mumbled with the chopsticks still in his mouth.

“ _What_ kind of ideas?” Hiromi inquired, grimacing at him.

“Please cut it out,” Professor silenced them both, “must you always argue over every small thing? They are Max's dreams, and that is all there is to it. I am rather fascinated by the continuity of his dreams, however.”

“Is it that unusual?” Max asked sheepishly, still dipping his fries.

“Yes,” all three of his friends said in unison. Kai, who was also there, said nothing, because he rarely said anything anyway. And nobody paid attention to the curious glances he threw at Max every now and then.

“But I never question him being there in my dreams,” Max said with a shrug. “It's like he's out of place but belongs there at the same time. Maybe Takao's right and I'm going a bit crazy.”

“I–I didn't mean that you're _crazy_ ,” Takao defended himself, blushing a little. He restrained himself from making any more hasty comments for the rest of the conversation.

“I just remembered something I read in one of my books, like ages ago,” Hiromi then said pensively. “There was something about being able to talk to other people in your dreams. But I can't remember what it said... But it's definitely a real thing...”

“Well,” Professor commented, “knowing how unscientific your books are... On the other hand – no harm in talking about hypothetical scenarios, is there?”

“It's so romantic, though!” Hiromi sighed. “I need to find that book again! I wonder how it was called...”

“Could I,” Max said slowly, “maybe borrow that book from you, when you find it?”

“Of course! Yes! Please do! How exciting would it be if it was true?! I really hope it is!”

Hiromi had entered her own eccentric sort of cloud nine, Takao and Professor exchanged understanding glances that roughly conveyed the message: “I don't believe it for even a second, but we know better to not rain on her parade, _ever_ ”; and Kai sat in silence, as usual. But Max had soon fallen back into deep thought, staring out of the window, his eyes set in a distance that he didn't actually see.

* * *

Max was floating in a body of water... No, he was in a boat. He was lying on his back in a small boat that was slowly drifting forwards, and all he could see was a sky full of stars. But they were big and five-pointed and cartoony, not real stars at all.

And Rei was there, on the same boat, Max could tell without even seeing him. Rei was dipping his hand in the still river, or ocean or whatever it was.

“Water again?” he asked. “This has to be your dream again. Do you drink tea before going to bed or something?”

Max snorted at the implication. “No – I've just always felt strongly about water as an element, I guess. I just like it. I like swimming, too.”

“You're my total opposite then,” Rei stated, taking his hand out. It wasn't even wet. Maybe the world of dreams finally remembered how much he hated getting wet.

Max tilted his head in an attempt to look at Rei, but finding it impossible, he sat up in the boat. “Rei,” he began, “you keep talking like these should be your dreams, but I know they are mine... Are you the same as me? Are you real, or just my imagination?”

Rei turned to look at him.

“What do you think?” he asked.

Max blinked.

“I think...”

Then, suddenly, the scenery around him dissolved, and he opened his eyes in his own bed.

* * *

Hiromi brought the book to Max a couple of days later. She explained it had been buried somewhere at the back of her numerous bookshelves. Her collection of books concerning anything and everything superstitious was big enough to form a private library.

As soon as he was home, Max sat down on his bed with the book. It was fairly old and written in English, it wasn't one of those fancy new ones marketed exclusively for people like Hiromi; it had a more mysterious air to it with its worn-out covers, and pages that had gained a yellow hue.

It was a book about soulmates. Not quite what Max had expected. He had thought that Hiromi would bring him a book on symbolic dreams, one of those that claimed that every dream was about something your subconscious was trying to tell you. But it wasn't. The book, in fact, wasn't about dreams at all, and it took Max a while to find the part that Hiromi had mentioned. The rest of the pages listed an extensive number of signs for identifying that your soul might be connected to another person's soul – body marks, unusual traits, hearing voices in your head. It was rather eerie, in all honesty, and reminded Max of witchcraft rather than everyday superstition.

The part that he had looked for concerned dreams as a medium to talk to a soulmate. At the very end, it mentioned actually meeting the soulmate inside your dreams – stating that it was a rare phenomenon, and implied an extraordinarily strong, mutual connection between the souls.

Max slammed the book shut, not sure what to think of it. Like Professor would have said, it was very unscientific. It was just old gibberish. Max wasn't inclined to believe in things like astrology, or tarot, or the number thirteen being unlucky or whatever.

But, humouring himself with such theories from time to time made life just a little bit more exciting.

* * *

Max was walking through a crowded airport, carrying a heavy backpack with him. He had never been to this airport in his life, but somehow he knew exactly where he was, and where he was supposed to go. And he was in a hurry, and Rei had at some point emerged from the crowd, as usual, keeping up with him without bumping into any of the people that should have blocked his way.

“I'm sorry, this is probably my fault,” Rei said. “I haven't even travelled in ages anymore, but these dreams just keep coming back to haunt me.”

Then, Max tripped on his own feet, and he fell on the floor, and the backpack was wide open and an assortment of pots and pans and other cookware spilled all over the place, about ten times more than could ever have fit in a backpack.

“Alright, enough of this,” he heard Rei say, and then the other boy grabbed the back of his neck and lifted him up, to the ceiling of the airport, except it didn't have a ceiling anymore, and he kept rising higher up, pulled by Rei who was flying. Now they were surrounded by enormous clouds, painted in hues of gold and purple. Rei stopped on one of them, letting go of Max, who found himself standing on a cloud as if it was solid ground.

“That was weird,” Max commented, albeit it was rather meaningless, since dreams were always weird. “You're very good at controlling your flying.”

“Well, you're good at controlling your swimming, aren't you?” Rei asked.

“That's true, I can breathe underwater and all.”

For a silent while, they stayed there looking at the clouds. They stood tall like a row of mountains. Maybe they weren't clouds at all, and were actually mountains.

“I believe,” Max then said, “that you're a real person, just like me, who has the same dreams as me, for some reason.”

“That's right,” Rei agreed. “I thought you were just my imagination, too, but then you kept appearing in my dreams, and sometimes they didn't even feel like my dreams at all. So I thought, they had to be your dreams instead, and I was the one visiting them, actually.”

“But this one is your dream that I'm visiting,” Max concluded.

“Yes, unless you regularly dream about the Hong Kong airport.”

“Why are we having the same dreams?”

“I have no idea.”

All of this made Max feel rather strange, and his heart beat a bit faster.

And as he blinked and woke up only seconds later, it continued beating fast inside his real chest.

* * *

Rei wasn't there every single night; there didn't seem to be any logic in when he appeared and when he didn't. But whenever he didn't, Max found himself disappointed, and felt somewhat empty as he woke up. More than once he had been tempted to stay in bed in the morning, making bold plans to skip the day in hopes of having better luck in the next dream. But imagining his friends' worry if they found him preferring sleeping over being awake was enough to make him shed such thoughts with a headshake. No, it wasn't that he didn't enjoy life, he had never had any such thoughts... but.

Max returned the book to Hiromi a few days later when they met to discuss it. She was horribly curious to hear his thoughts on the book. She didn't understand all of its contents herself, as she wasn’t fluent in English like Max was.

“It's a pretty strange book,” Max told her. “I'm not sure if I believe in those kinda things.”

“That's fine. That's true, it's a book about this thing called soulmates, right?” Hiromi skimmed through the old book herself. “That's...”

“A person whose soul is connected to yours, I guess.”

“Well, it would make sense to meet someone's soul in your dreams, wouldn't it?? Some theories say your soul leaves your body when you sleep. I think that's called soul travel, or having an astral body. It's a pretty common thing in occultism.”

“But have you ever heard of anyone else have a 'soulmate', though?” Max asked with a frown. “Or doing this soul thing anyway?”

“Not from anyone personally,” Hiromi admitted. She had stopped to look at some particular page in the book. “But when you think about it, a lot of people could dream about their soulmates, but they're people they already know, so there isn't any difference. Or they may not remember those dreams after waking up.”

“The book says that visiting each other's dreams means a particularly strong connection.”

“How does that connection feel like to you?” Hiromi then asked.

“Huh?” Max scratched his blonde head. “How...? Well...”

“According to the book,” she continued, her eyes still on the pages, “everyone has a soulmate, but people with weak or no extrasensory perception generally live their lives oblivious to the existence of such, even if they did end up meeting their soulmate. A soulmate is a person whose soul compliments yours and is thus technically your perfect match and who you are fated to be with, usually in romantic sense, but –“

“Wait,” Max interrupted her, “ _romantic_? We've been talking about romance this whole time?”

“Usually,” Hiromi repeated. “The book doesn't rule out the possibility of a platonic soulmate, and, like it said, most people don't have the sixth sense to identify their soulmate or meet them in their dreams, so they'll never even figure it out. Your soulmate could be your best friend from kindergarten, but you end up marrying your high school crush, or whatever.” She lowered the book to cast a dreamy look in the skies, or in this case, the library's tall ceiling. “I love this kind of stuff...! Isn't it a fascinating idea?”

“Sounds pretty sad to me,” Max said, “not realising your, uh, fated person was right there all along.”

Hiromi's gaze then darted back to Max, packed with curiosity. “I guess you have no idea where this dream person of yours is?” she asked. “In reality.”

“Hiromi-chan, it would be fun if those things were real, but I'm not sure if I buy this thing about Rei being my soulmate, you know.”

“Because you're both guys?”

“... No...” Max tilted his head. He hadn't ever had a particular preference in either direction, he'd never gone out with anybody. “It's just... hard to believe in something like this all of a sudden.”

“So you're not attracted to that Rei person at all?”

A pause. Max opened his mouth, and nothing came out, and he closed it again. He knew very well how he'd ever so often wake up with his heart beating just a tad faster. He crossed his arms on his chest.

“I haven't thought about it that way,” he then said. “Dreams just kind of happen and I have no control of my feelings in them, you know? And...”

“And?” Hiromi egged him on.

“And... I... I don't even know what he looks like.”

Max hadn't even realised it until the very moment he had articulated the words just now.

Hiromi lifted her eyebrows.

“I mean, can you really see people's faces in your dreams, in general?” Max continued after a few confusing seconds. “When I dream of people I know, I just _know_ who they are, and sometimes the person changes to another person in the go and I don't even question it, and when I wake up I just realise, it was both that person and the other person at the same time. They could have anyone's face, and none of it makes any sense actually. And when I dream of someone I have never even met... I don't know what his face is like. He's there in the dreams, and I know he looks like _something_ , but... I don't know his face. I only know that his hair is really long.”

“So, I guess you do know what he looks like,” Hiromi said slowly, clearly pondering hard on this herself, “but you just don't stop to question it in the dreams, and you have no actual memory of his face, so... it's the same as if you didn't know... Something like that?”

“Something like that,” Max confirmed.

“But you like his presence in your dreams?” Hiromi then asked.

“I do...”

“You've said it feels really natural to have him around, like he's always been there? Like you belong together?”

“Yeah...”

“Have you ever wished the dreams didn't just abruptly end so you could be with him longer?”

“I have...”

“I absolutely think he is your soulmate,” Hiromi concluded, slamming the book on a table between them.

* * *

Max had decided to hold onto the book for just a little longer after all. He had to admit he was intrigued about the whole soulmate concept now, whether he could – or wanted to – truly believe in it or not.

Back in his own bedroom, he placed the book on his desk, then flopped down on his bed with a sigh. The lights were already off, only the brightness of the city behind the window still cast its dim light into the room. Max eyed the darkness around him. He had a restless feeling of sorts in his chest; he wondered if he had forgotten about something. But as he tried to remember, the thought kept slipping away from him somehow.

He settled a bit further into his bed, and suddenly felt his back bump against something behind him. Startled, he almost jumped right up; he turned around to look behind him, and there was Rei, lying in his bed.

It was a dream, of course. That's why his thoughts kept drifting apart. Breathing heavily from the surprise, Max carefully crouched over the other boy's figure. His eyes were closed, it seemed that he was sleeping. Why was he sleeping in Max's dream?

But Max immediately understood this as the product of his subconscious wanting to know what Rei's face looked like. And now he could easily see it, as if he was only really looking at him for the first time, which he pretty much was. He wasn't, but he also was.

Max reached out a hand to move some long strands of hair out of Rei's face. He had dark, bold eyebrows, long eyelashes, and pointy ears that reminded Max of the elves from the Lord of the Rings movies. He had enough reason in the dream to think back to elves, but not to question this sight.

It took him a couple of seconds to notice when Rei suddenly opened his eyes. They stared at each other, neither really understanding what he saw. Rei's eyes were a golden yellow colour that Max for some reason could see in the darkness, and Rei obviously had no idea where he was.

Then Rei sat up, glancing around with a dull expression. “I don't recognise this place.”

“This is my bedroom,” Max explained. But as soon as he had said so, he took another look around the dark room himself, and realised something was wrong. “No... Wait... This isn't... This is my room from back when we lived in New York... years ago.” And that's exactly what it was.

Rei let out a pensive hum. “No wonder the walls are plastered with Pokémon and Beyblade,” he said, looking at the numerous posters around them. Max snickered – it was obvious, of course, that this room was from roughly a decade ago, and when he later thought about it, he often had dreams where he was at “home” that actually was their old house back in America.

“But now that you're aware of it,” Rei pointed out, “the room is gonna change.”

And it did. This dream, however, was very uneventful. Max had thought he was in his bedroom, getting ready to sleep. That's all there was to the dream they found themselves in tonight.

But Max kept turning back to stare at Rei's face every few seconds. And Rei obviously noticed, and gave him the most questioning of looks back. Max inched a bit closer.

“Can I touch your face?” he asked and, without waiting for an answer, grabbed the sides of Rei's head in his hands. He felt very much real. His pointy ears also felt real. A faint blush rose on Rei's cheeks as Max kept fondling his ears, with a bit too much care for it to be normal.

“That tickles,” Rei mumbled, but didn't even attempt to pull his head away.

“I haven't ever really looked at you before,” Max found himself speaking out the truth.

“You haven't?”

“At your face, I mean. I've seen it, but haven't looked at it.”

Rei kept staring at him with his sharp, almost cat-like golden eyes. “Well,” he then said, “what do you think?” His tone was unsure, as if he didn't know if he truly wanted to ask.

Max, still holding Rei's head in both hands, had a sudden, burning, almost throbbing need to kiss him, right there and then. His brain was definitely coded to find it the natural continuation of a scenario like this.

“Soul that compliments yours”. “Technically your perfect match”. “Who you are fated to be with”. “In the romantic sense”. Hiromi's words kept buzzing inside his head like a very persistent fly. Ripped out pages of the book were swirling around him. Romantic, romantic, romantic...

The real world came back to Max like a strike of lightning, he was staring at the ceiling of his bedroom – his _real_ bedroom – eyes wide open. He was out of breath, his body was covered in beads of sweat that made the sheets stick to his skin, it felt icky. And he didn't remember the end of the dream. He didn't remember.

* * *

“I think I made out with him last night,” Max casually told the others the next day, leaning his chin on a hand.

Takao spat coke all over the table, Professor almost choked on his fries; Hiromi halted in the middle of bringing a burger into her mouth, and Kai said nothing, like usual.

“You _think_?” Hiromi asked.

“I can't remember the end of the dream,” Max explained. “Maybe I didn't even get that far. I don't know. I think I was trying to, but then I woke up. And I feel like somehow you were there, Hiromi-chan.”

Takao and Professor turned to look at Hiromi, as if to scorn her for invading Max's privacy. She pushed their faces away.

“Max, why was I in your dream about making out with– No no no, that sounds stupid, I'm sure it didn't happen if you can't remember. Maybe your brain woke you up before you got too into it.”

Max's free hand joined the other below his chin. “It was pretty disappointing to wake up, only to realise I remembered nothing,” he said.

“Aha! I knew it.” Hiromi took a sip of her coke, while Takao was still wiping his off the table, using all the napkins the five of them had gathered on the table. “You're attracted to him after all.”

“I think it's partially your fault, though. You planted these ideas in my head.”

“And I think the ideas were there right from the beginning, Max, and their seeds just needed some fertiliser.”

“This dream dude is your boyfriend now?” Takao asked, throwing a wildly skeptical look at his best friend. “You've always been kinda special, but...”

“What do you mean, special?” Max asked back, frowning.

“ _That's_ what you're concerned about?”

“And he's not my boyfriend, and you can't scold me about weird boyfriends anyway, you're going out with Kai.” Max made a vague motion in the silent boy's direction.

“Rude,” Takao pointed out.

“Let's all calm down here,” the somewhat flustered Professor suggested, “and maybe change the topic, shall we?”

“But I want to hear the juicy details,” Hiromi demanded.

“There's nothing juicy to tell! Because I woke up!” Max protested, still a bit offended from having been called “special”.

In this manner, their daily friendly banter and borderline inappropriate conversing continued.

* * *

Max didn't really know if he had caused this himself, or if it was indirectly caused by Hiromi, but the dreams about Rei had definitely gained a new colour in the eye of his mind. Once he was self-aware of liking Rei, his subconscious was rather relentless about it. And Rei wasn't against his advances – quite the contrary, Max felt like he had been expecting it. But he also came to realise that despite often having a better grasp of the dreams, Rei was actually pretty awkward, and he wasn't good at initiating things, not even in the world of dreams. Everything went smoothly for him as long as they were _his_ dreams, but when they weren't, it came down to Max to take the lead. Waking up from those dreams was becoming an ordeal of its own.

Rei had appeared in his dreams so regularly that his sudden absence one night was all the more disappointing to Max. Then, he didn't appear the next night either. Nor the one after, nor the one after that one. A couple of nights turned into a few. A few turned into many. And the fact that there was nothing Max could do about it frustrated him more than anything else.

His dreams had been revolving around books for a while. Max could only assume it was the book on soulmates haunting him even in his sleep; surely enough, the book often made its way to his dreams. Some of these dreams were about studying – in the most unpleasant, feverish way, he kept going through books after books after books with no end in sight, and he was always looking for something that he couldn't specify, in a race against the clock. He kept wondering if these weren't actually Rei's dreams, where Max just couldn't find him no matter how he tried.

* * *

Max was walking back and forth a thin aisle between two bookshelves. Carrying a book in his arms, he was determined about looking for something, but the harder he looked, the less sure he became of what he was actually looking for. And then he stopped, realising that he, indeed, did not know what he was looking for. And he looked around him, and had no idea where he was. It looked like a library. It _was_ a library, but where or when, he didn't know. Only seconds ago, he hadn't questioned that he had never actually been there.

Once Max knew this, he left the isle to go look for Rei. This had to be his dream, he had to be somewhere in there. He climbed stairs, he walked past shelves after shelves, he looked behind every possible corner, walked up more stairs, walked down others. He didn't meet a soul. There was nobody else in the library, and wherever he walked, the place seemed to grow bigger, expanding infinitely in the rhythm of his steps. What once was a wall had become an empty corridor, or a new pair of stairs.

Most doors that he tried just plain didn't open, so when he grabbed another handle and the door flew open so fast it should have hit him right in the face – laws of physics didn't seem to apply in this dream – he stumbled a few steps backwards in surprise. And there was Rei, suddenly standing on the other side of the door.

All they did was stare at each other, looking confused.

Then, Max threw himself right at him while letting out an excited yell. The unprepared Rei fell backwards, taking Max with him.

“I knew you'd be here! So I kept looking for you!” Max said, not caring about their awkward position on the floor. “I haven't seen you in ages!”

“My bad,” Rei replied in a weary voice, “I've been doing all-nighters studying for entrance exams, I barely get any sleep, and when I do, it's the restless kind that gives me short nightmares at best.”

Max let go of the other boy, backing away from him. “You do look exhausted. There's dark rings under your eyes.”

“They follow me here, too? Great,” Rei mumbled. “I'm sorry I apparently dragged you into my studying dreams, too. This is the university library. Ouch, 'the heck am I sitting on?”

He reached behind his back and took out the book that Max had been carrying with him. It was Hiromi's book, what else.

“Oh, it's a book I read, and it keeps following me into _my_ dreams,” Max explained. He had already forgotten he even had a book just seconds ago.

Rei gave the old, worn-out book a curious look, and opened it. He flipped through a couple of pages, then a few more, blinking his eyes in confusion. “There's nothing written on it,” he said.

“Huh?” Max leaned over, and true enough, every yellow page of the book was empty. Rei looked through the whole book, and not a word was written on it. “Maybe because you haven't actually read it?”

“I wish the exam literature had this much content,” Rei said as he let the book fall off his hands. It dissolved and disappeared; Max was panicked about it for a split second, since it was Hiromi's book, before he realised it was only a dream. He didn't even have the book anymore to begin with.

“Now that I finally found you, let's go do something nice,” Max decided and jumped up from the floor. “Let's just step out of a window and fly away. We could do anything together.”

Rei shook his head. “I'm really low on energy, honestly, I don't think I can fly right now.” He looked so very tired, it made Max sad. Feeling exhausted in a dream was such waste.

“Okay, then I'll bring you somewhere nice.” Max grabbed Rei's arm and pulled him up. Then he closed the door he had thrown himself through earlier, and opened it again, and this time, a completely different scenery stood before their eyes. It was a beautiful summer day, a bright blue sky above them, a green lawn under their now bare feet. Rei turned around to close the door behind him, but there was no door.

“This is the backyard of my house back in New York,” Max explained, “the best place in the world for relaxing! In my opinion, anyway.”

“It's very nice,” Rei said, eyeing the yard that stretched in every direction around them. “And... huge.”

They sat down on the grass side by side. This place wasn't so morbidly quiet as the library had been at all; a warm breeze rustled the greenery around them, nonexistent birds were singing their simple yet intricate songs somewhere in the distance. It was a very specific scenario and, Rei thought, probably from some memorable summer of Max's childhood.

“I could give you a massage,” Max suggested, tracing Rei's back with his fingers. Rei wasn't against this idea, and moved his long braid out of the way. How strange it was that this was only a dream, and while he was well aware of it, Max's touch still felt very much real. Maybe Rei's brain knew to make it feel exactly the way he wanted it to. He really didn't care to question it. It was always the best to not question the dreams.

Max's hands made their way down Rei's back. Once they were low enough, right above his waist, Max slipped them under his arms and wrapped them around his chest. He leaned his weight against Rei's back, his head on his shoulder.

“What is it?” Rei said calmly, touching Max's hand with his own.

“Why do you think we appear in each other's dreams?” Max asked, mostly mumbling into Rei's neck.

“I don't know,” Rei answered, just like he had before.

“I feel like I met you to fall in love with you.”

His suggestion made Rei laugh. “That's sappy. But just between you and me, I'm pretty weak for stories like that.”

* * *

Reality had never felt so dull to Max. They were on a train, he was leaning his head against the window, staring listlessly out of it while the rest were going about their typical banter, except for Kai who was always quiet.

“I still think we should have taken the other line to get there,” Hiromi said, poking the map on Professor's laptop. “Look, that's much shorter, isn't it?”

“It's not, you idiot, this cuts straight through here!” Takao protested, poking the map all the same.

“Please keep your fingers off the screen!” Professor wailed and attempted to pull the laptop away from them with his tiny arms. “You are leaving greasy stains on it! Shame on you! Shame on you all!”

“Oh, come on, just wipe it clean,” Takao suggested and grabbed Professor's green tie, rubbing it on the laptop and earning a very high-pitched yell from him.

It was the same as always. Everything was the same as always. Max yawned, wondering whose side he should take in this obviously serious predicament. Suddenly, a certain building passed them by behind the window.

And Max jumped up from his seat so fast, he didn't remember he had a pile of guidebooks on his lap and they all scattered around the train's floor.

“What?” everyone else asked in unison, except for Kai.

“The library!” Max said, pressing himself against the window, as if he could have looked back that way. “The university library! It's where he studies for the entrance exams!”

“D'you think he needs therapy?” Takao whispered to Professor.

“Well, what are you standing there for, then?” Hiromi accosted, standing up with her hands on her hips. “Let's get off on the next station and go look for him – that's what you want, isn't it?”

Not everyone was as interested in chasing the man of Max's dreams, but they nevertheless followed, mostly out of curiosity, as he jumped off the train only moments later. Now the map was very convenient for checking the way back to the library.

“How do you know if he's there right now or not, though?” Takao asked, walking behind Max, his hands leisurely behind his head. “It would suck if he wasn't.”

“He's there every day,” Max said, sounding tense. “I'm sure of it.”

The rest had learned by now not to question Max's bizarre tales, but they couldn't help being somewhat worried about him; a wish they all now shared was that this trip would resolve the whole thing, one way or another.

After walking a kilometre or so, they arrived at the library. Max had never seen it from the outside in his dreams, but it was one of the things he simply knew, he could tell this was exactly the place. And as they entered through a set of large doors, he only grew surer about it. Even with the library full of people, he could recognise the places where he had been running around in his – or Rei's – dream earlier.

Hiromi, who had first and foremost been Max's confidant when it came to the dreams, began boldly looking for a person that matched her friend's descriptions. Max, feeling both shaky and determined, followed her example and looked where she didn't. The other three mostly staggered behind them as a single awkward entity, and felt very out of place in this unknown library.

They had climbed two floors upwards, and Hiromi marched ahead of Max, who recognised this as the floor where he had found himself walking between the bookshelves. And Hiromi was looking through those very aisles now, and suddenly she stopped.

“Max,” she whispered, signing him to get closer with her hand, “look.”

And Max walked up to her, and looked between the aisles. There was a study area on the other side of the bookshelves, and at the end of this aisle, there was a desk with a single person sitting on one of the chairs around it, crouched over a book, resting his forehead on a hand and looking remarkably stressed out, his dark hair tied on a tall ponytail at the back of his head. They silently observed him closing the book; he seemed to be looking for something on the messy desk.

Max felt his hot, agitated heartbeat in his ears, his face, his neck, everywhere. His skin felt tingly, his feet wouldn't move.

“Oh, come on! Do it!” Hiromi prompted hoarsely and started pushing him from behind. Inevitably moving towards the desk, Max couldn't stop his legs from shaking. Takao, Professor and Kai peeked from behind one of the bookshelves.

Max walked over very slowly. He stopped a couple of metres away from the desk to call him out in a small voice.

“I found you... Rei...!”

And Rei turned to look at him, obviously startled and confused by the sudden interruption. Max stepped closer. He couldn't help a bright smile spreading on his face.

He still couldn't believe it, but this most definitely was Rei... The real Rei, not only a dream...!

“I'm sorry for ambushing you like this out of nowhere,” Max then continued when Rei only stared at him with a dumbfounded expression, “but I had to... I saw the library from the train, and I just knew you'd be here, and...!”

“Sorry,” Rei cut him off, moving some of his long hair out of his face, “I think you're mistaken...? Do I know you?”

Hiromi exchanged glances with the three boys behind her. Then, she turned back to Max, who was standing in complete silence now.

Max's smile had faded. The hot rush of adrenaline, as fast as it had washed over him, had been replaced by coldness; he felt like his insides had suddenly frozen over. His hand had stopped in mid-air, in the middle of a wave.

Rei blinked his cat-like golden eyes. Only genuine confusion was reflected in them.

“You... don't remember me...?” Max asked slowly.

“Have we met somewhere?” Rei asked in return, very politely.

Max's hand dropped to his side. Hiromi could only look in worried silence as he clenched his fists and fought back another surge of emotion.

“We have,” Max then said, “we have met many times. In dreams.”

“Dreams?”

“You really don't remember... anything...?”

Rei shook his head, but his eyes were still nailed into Max, now wide in astonishment. “No... I... I don’t really remember any dreams at all...”

“Max...” Hiromi said quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I think we'd better go...”

Max said nothing for a while. He hung his head, his gaze unfocused. A paralysing numbness had taken him over, he didn't tremble from either nervousness or excitement anymore, he’d been sucked dry of emotion and there was nothing left. His head felt heavy.

“Sorry for bothering you,” he said in a hollow voice, then turned around and walked away. Hiromi followed in his tracks, but she didn't dare to say anything. Neither did Takao nor Professor, and Kai never said anything anyway, they only walked after Max and Hiromi who made their way back towards the doors.

“D'you reckon it really was him?” Takao whispered to Professor.

“I don't know,” Professor whispered back. “But Max did know that a person looking just like him would be here, did he not? Isn't it extraordinary?”

“I feel pretty bad for him...”

Led by Max, they descended a few small steps leading to the bottom floor, to a wide space resembling an entrance hall.

Then, a yell came from behind them.

“Hey! You! Wait!”

Max froze, immediately recognising Rei's voice, and turned around. Rei, holding onto a hastily packed schoolbag – judging from the way everything was just sort of sticking out of it – was running down the steps they'd walked down only seconds earlier. He was a bit out of breath as he stopped in front of Max.

“I...” he panted, “This is so weird... but... I feel like... I really have seen you before. And I thought... if I let you go... it's going to keep bothering me forever.” He paused briefly, then tilted his head with a slight frown. “Did you say we've met in... dreams?”

“Yeah. Many times.” Max's voice was relatively calm, considering how his heart had started beating just a tad faster anew. “Actually... really... a lot.”

“You even knew my name...”

“And I know you're brooding over entrance exams, and that you hate getting wet, and that your ears are really sensitive.”

They spent a while only standing there in the middle of the hall, staring at each other, various wild thoughts running through both of their heads.

“Who are you?” Rei then said, still somewhat breathless. His long hair was sticking to his face.

The corner of Max’s mouth curved into the tiniest of smiles.

“Have you ever heard of soulmates?” he asked.


	4. Royal fantasy AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Characters:** The main four (Rei-centric) plus Mao, the European team (Majestics) and... Max's parents are there also  
>  **Pairing:** none
> 
> Rei, the young king of the Country of West, sets out to visit a foreign kingdom for the first time in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **edit 10/2017:** well this oneshot is now completely outdated and useless (and pretty bad too now that i read it afterwards myself) as i'm working on a full length fic of this AU now, but i'm too lazy to edit all the tags and stuff, so i guess i'll leave this here as a relic. (/end of edit part)
> 
> this one needs some more explaining....... this is actually part of a bigger AU that's just so massive that i haven't ever even planned to write it at all, but then i was possessed by the idea of writing this tiny chunk of it anyway. this is actually an AU within an AU (i hate myself so much. it's a sailor moon-kind of thing) that's like a prologue to the actual story, and this is the beginning of that prologue from rei's point of view. so this fic doesn't make super much sense, because it has a lot of description about the fantasy universe of the story that this fic WOULD BE one small part of, and then it goes absolutely nowhere because this is only the beginning of a longer story. but i had so much fun writing this, i just may return to it someday.
> 
> this AU is also heavily inspired by the twelve kingdoms series.

In a time and space so very different from ours that it's impossible for a mere human to understand, there existed a world that had been divided into four lands by four heavenly beasts. Although equal in size, all four lands had their own unique characteristics: the Azure Dragon's Country of East was lush with greenery, and famous for its beautiful, everblooming cherry trees; the Vermilion Bird's Country of South was always embraced by the warmth of sun; in the White Tiger's colourful Country of West, ancient traditions lived hand in hand with advanced technology; and the Black Tortoise's Country of North was known for its bodies of water that never froze over, despite the endless and eternal snow which covered its soil.

The four holy beasts watched over the world of their creation from the heavens, but had no means of governing the countries themselves. Thus, they chose to grant the power to rule each land to four kings – kings that were born from the branches of four heavenly trees. As decades passed, the original chosen four would pass their powers down to their heirs, and these heirs would again pass them down to their own heirs, and each time a new line of rulers was born, their powers grew greater and greater. The rulers became to be known as the heavenly kings and the mythical descendants of the holy beasts.

Despite this, the four kings weren't all that different from humans. They were born to their parents from prayers to the heavenly trees and, as children, they grew and matured like anybody else. Only their extraordinary powers – the powers of wood, fire, metal and water – distinguished them from their subjects.

But once a hundred of its cycles had gone by, their world was coming to its end.

Perhaps it was an omen of the fast-approaching end that this generation of kings had an exceptionally unfortunate fate: three of them prematurely lost their parents – the previous heavenly rulers – and had to carry their crowns from very young age. Only the young prince of the Country of North was spared from this calamity.

The four young kings grew in isolation, only aware of each other through news from other countries and stories they were told. They could only wonder what the other three were truly like, somewhere out there, the only other people in the world who were the same as them.

This is the story of the day when the royal palace of the Country of West received an invitation from the Country of North.

* * *

“Don't forget to take the mittens. I'm serious, you can't even imagine how cold it is up there! Yes, both the gloves and the mittens!”

Rei stared at the growing pile of clothes with furrowed brows. He was quickly starting to feel like he was about to be sent to an expedition to a cold wasteland of no return, rather than a formal visit to another royal palace. Could it be that even the palace was as cold as a freezer? Or could there be something even colder out there? No way.

Mao was being fussier than ever while essentially packing his bag for him, despite him never asking her to.

“And remember to change into those woollen socks during the trip,” she kept throwing her orders at him. “You know it's downright horrible when you get sick, so you don't want that happening ever again, Rei-nii. Remember how it lasted for a month.”

“I know. But why do I have to do all that, when you can't do as much as start calling me Byakko-ou instead? Hasn't it been long enough since my coronation now?”

“Rei-nii is Rei-nii. Come on, hurry up! See, there comes Mr. Snobbypants! You need to get ready to leave!”

Rei sighed and crouched over to put a pair of inconveniently thick boots on his feet as his knight – basically, his right hand and personal bodyguard – approached the two of them, carrying luggage of his own, most likely consisting of some more clothes. They were by the front doors of the royal palace, all set to take off to the Country of North for the very first time. Rei's parents, while they had still lived, had visited it once or twice, but the cold climate wasn't exactly favoured by the other three nations. They would all have to suck it up this time, however, as the royal family of the Country of North had initiated the first official meeting of all four of the current rulers. The meeting would be held in their palace.

Rei had ruled the Country of West as its king – the Byakko-ou, which was his official title – for as long as he remembered, although the kingdom had been run by his adult relatives while he was still too young to tell left from right. He didn't remember his parents, but all the essential parts of his life had, from his point of view, been there for as long as he had lived: Mao was his cousin and his fiancée, as apparently decided by their parents before the two even knew what marriage meant; his knight, Olivier, had been by his side ever since he remembered and, just like Mao, felt like nothing more than a childhood friend to him. The existence of these two was one of the things that Rei had never learned to question as a child, but the older he got, the less it made sense to him how things had been decided for him without his consent, while he hadn’t been capable of even understanding anything. He faintly remembered a phase of realising how being the king of his country was the most amazing thing there could be, and he had been quite a cocky child and enjoyed ordering other people around for a while, as any child would. But by now, he wasn't sure whether it was that glorious at all.

Being the king brought about so much responsibility, and so many obligations. So many procedures to learn and follow, so many ancient traditions of his kingdom that he had to dutifully respect and obey, no matter how little sense they made to him. An arranged marriage was one of them. Having to stay in the palace all night and day, unless there was some formal obligation that required him to leave, was another one of them. During the last couple of years, Rei had come to realise just how little freedom he actually had. He was the most respected, even worshipped person in the entire kingdom, and he wasn't allowed to decide how to live his own life, all because of the country's obsession with following the same centuries-old guidelines, set by... people who had lived a very long time ago, probably.

Travelling into the Country of North had also been decided for him. Apparently, the Country of West had received an invitation from the royal family (he never got to see the actual invitation himself), and it was some sort of unwritten law (his opinion was never asked) to not turn down direct invitations from a royal family to another. It would be Rei's first time visiting another country and meeting the other kings, and while he welcomed any change to the dull everyday routine with open arms... of all places, it had to be the North. He had never heard a single good thing about the North, it was a country that was cold all year round, and since the land belonged to Genbu the Black Tortoise, its sky was pitch black; he had seen it in the news plenty of times. It was the polar opposite of Rei's country and its tall, dark buildings against a white sky. The North would have a white soil against a black sky. How could something so backwards even exist? The thought alone was so very alien, even frightening. All of this contributed in Rei’s inability to show but a dissatisfied face as Mao waved her goodbyes to him, Olivier and a small group of adults accompanying them (because it seemed to be some sort of necessity to have a personal army tailing him wherever he went).

* * *

Although the four kings were the chosen ones with the strongest magical powers in each kingdom, everyone who was allowed to inhabit the four royal palaces under the divine protection of the four holy beasts had powers of some caliber. As soon as a new heir to the crown was born, they became the strongest entity in the kingdom, gradually leaving their parents behind. The second strongest in each kingdom, after the kings, were their knights. The rest were mostly granted enough power to take care of the palace and help their ruler if necessary. But no matter what level of magic they possessed, anyone with powers was able to summon a holy beast of their own – the kings, of course, could summon the four divine beasts, but the rest were so called lesser holy beasts, magical creatures that existed below the four beasts.

And because of these beasts, there was no need for the king and his servants to travel by vehicles, or by foot to that matter. But because summoning the four divine beasts was considered a sacred ritual saved for special occasions in the Country of West, Rei wasn't just allowed to ride Byakko the White Tiger himself. Thus, he was seated in front of Olivier, on the back of his holy beast which had the form of a unicorn. Admittedly, riding a horse made travelling a whole lot easier. Holy beasts could travel at incredible speed, and despite the Country of North being far, far away from the royal palace of the West, they were well on their way in no time.

Rei, with feelings of nervous anticipation bubbling inside his chest, watched the scenery of his own kingdom zoom past as a blur of familiar greens, yellows, reds and oranges under a colourless sky. The distinctive feature of the West, apart from its white sky, were the autumn colours gracing all the plants all year round – much like the North had its snow, the East had its cherry blossoms, and the South... Well... A lot of the South was covered by dry desert. Rei wasn't quite sure what sort of plants there grew. The South had never taken the same kind of pride in its nature as the other kingdoms, but it was blessed with warmth at the very least, unlike the North that Rei was now inevitably heading towards.

Rei didn't want to attract any excessive attention during the journey, so the holy beasts carried them across inhabited lands, forests and rivers, evading the bustle of towns and cities along the way. The West was the wealthiest of the four kingdoms, and its cities were the biggest and most technologically advanced in the whole world. It was the melting pot of both old and new culture, a metal-clad country where people respected ancient rituals and worshipped the king as a god. Rei had heard that the other three countries were vastly different from it, but the West was the only place he knew of, it was the reality he had lived his whole life in up to this point.

The Countries of West and North were separated by a wide river, and it was the only concrete marker of the border. Of course, the environment didn't just change suddenly while crossing the river. As they entered the northern territories of the country, the sky gradually gained a darker hue, first of a metallic grey, then darker, then darker still… and Rei could already feel the chill of the cold air pushing through from ahead. They had stopped to put on more clothes before continuing even further north, and Rei had to admit that Mao had been very helpful when insisting that he would need all those layers. He had been prepared warmer robes fit for the journey, so that while also dressing accordingly, he still wore the beautiful royal garments of his country. He could only wonder what the royals of the Country of North usually wore.

When they approached the river separating the kingdoms, the horizon was ominously promising of that upside-down scenery that concerned Rei so: the further he looked, the blacker the sky was, and while the opposing shore still looked much like the soil they were now standing on, it was cut off by rows of strange trees that had needles in place of leaves, unlike anything Rei had seen before.

He crossed the river with his escorts, easily dashing over and past it with the light and agile magical beasts, but they weren't quite sure where to continue from there. The land was unfamiliar, and they had deliberately avoided roads of any kind. Olivier tried to reason that it would be the best to follow the river to find the closest bridge and the road that followed; however, Rei stayed was insistent on avoiding being seen by commoners. He wasn't in the mood to deal with such things, it was more than enough for him to mentally prepare for his role of representing a proper king as soon as they arrived at the royal palace of North.

* * *

The holy beasts continued onwards through the forest of needle trees, since the royal palace was located further still to the north in any case. They kept going until they reached the quiet outskirts of a town, and decided to stop for a while for the escorts to properly locate them on a map.

Rei hopped down from the unicorn beast Unicolyon's back. “I don't want to stay still like this,” he said, “somebody could see us and come over. And I feel awful after sitting for so long – I'll go take a stroll.”

“I'll come with you,” Olivier said immediately, getting off the beast as well.

“No, I want to be alone. I won't get lost, I'll just follow my own footprints back. Just let me have a bit of peace and quiet, okay?”

And so Rei turned his back to the others and strolled away. The location they had stopped at was wide in the open and he didn't feel comfortable with it.

He made his way towards what looked like the remains of an old stone castle, or maybe a temple of some sort; it had a tower that had partially collapsed on itself, most likely hundreds of years ago already. It was at a remote location outside the town, and most importantly, there were no footprints anywhere near it. It provided an ideal safe haven for Rei to calm down by himself for a moment.

It was only natural that he was a bit overwhelmed. He had never been this far from his own palace before, and he was quite anxious about having to meet other royals for the very first time. He had never travelled on Unicolyon's back for this long, either, so it was true that his body was aching all over, and he was already tired, so very tired.

But the coldness hadn't shocked him nearly as much as he had expected. Maybe it was the protection of his winter robes, woollen socks and mittens; or maybe he didn't even think of being bothered by the cold, as he was so taken aback by the scenery he was now surrounded by.

It was so quiet, and so serene; the polar opposite of the busy West. Rei had expected an ominously dark sky void of light, but when he looked above, he saw brilliant hues of purple blending in with black and grey. There was a moon, too, casting its dim light through a veil of clouds. And the snow, it was the most beautiful of pearly whites; wherever he looked, it shone like a mattress of diamonds – and more was gently floating down from above. It was all so different from what he had fearfully expected. It was much more appeasing than he had had the ability to imagine.

Rei stood there on the deserted castle yard in silence, the gaze of his golden eyes still lingering in the dark heights. He reached out his right hand, letting the small fragments from the sky land on it, marvelling at their unique shapes. It felt bizarre how all of that white mass around him was made of these tiny, tiny flakes of snow. He had expected it to come down like the rain, in droplets of dull shapes.

But as he stood still in the snowfall, the cold was slowly but surely beginning to seep through his clothes. It felt bristly on his cheeks, numb in his fingers and toes. He realised he shouldn't stay standing there for too long.

Then, suddenly, he was struck with a feeling of a very different sort – the feeling of being watched. As long as he stayed focused, Rei had quite a strong sixth sense, and it wasn't often that he was surprised off guard. Immediately alarmed, he spun around wildly to identify the intruder. Someone was watching him, he was absolutely positive about it.

But there was nobody there. The scenery around him was perfectly still, save for the serene snowfall.

“I know someone's here!” Rei called out in his most pompous tone, the kind that he hoped made him sound like a king. “Show yourself!”

A momentary silence.

Someone emerged from behind a stone pillar, one of the many that adorned the old castle. The mystery person didn't seem too eager to leave the safety of their hiding place. A dark cloak veiled their figure from head to toe, a large hood hiding their facial features from view. They were holding a dark umbrella, pointing it towards the ground.

Rei took a threatening stance, frowning at the suspiciously-clad stranger. “Who are you?” he demanded.

The stranger seemed equally alarmed by Rei's behaviour; they dropped their umbrella and waved their hands as if to prove their innocence. “I'm not anyone fishy, I swear!” Rei was astonished to hear the voice of a boy around his age, or maybe a bit younger. “I was just walking past here and was surprised to see someone like you standing there, and I panicked and didn't know what to do, so I hid myself!”

Rei could hardly believe this explanation – after all, he had been standing there for a while now, but hadn't seen anyone come or go.

“Do you know who I am?” Rei asked cautiously. The stranger looked like a beggar to him. And the collapsed castle seemed like the sort of desolate place where the homeless would dwell.

“Why, of course,” the stranger replied giddily, “I don't think anyone could not. I mean, your looks kinda give it away immediately.”

Maybe commoners were well versed about foreign rulers here in the north. But this person recognised him as a king, yet didn't address him like one at all. Rei wasn't used to being talked to in such a rude manner. It only cemented his picture of this person coming from a low class. He could have been hiding a weapon of some sort under his cloak, so Rei decided to stay wary.

“But what’s someone of such importance doing here?” the person then asked. He took a few steps closer; Rei could now see that he had a rather childlike face, but the hood still cast a deep shadow over his features, so Rei couldn't tell much. Was he a child after all?

“That is none of your business, now, is it?” Rei replied haughtily. The snow crunched loudly under his boots as he took a step backwards himself.

“Hmm, I guess you're right, it really isn't.” The stranger tilted his head with a sheepish smile. “I was just wondering if you're lost. I could show you the way.”

That was the single most suspicious offer Rei had ever been given in his life.

“No thanks,” he said, “my escorts are nearby. My knight, too.” He was hoping that mentioning a knight served as a warning.

“Okay.” The stranger seemed to finally give up, and turned around to pick the umbrella he had dropped. He opened it and lifted it over his head – which seemed like a rather pointless act, as his head was already covered by a hood – and then left Rei to his own devices, walking in the opposite direction than from where Rei had approached the castle. Rei could only scowl at his dark back, still expecting the stranger to suddenly turn around and attack him. As he kept staring, he also noticed a single emblem on the otherwise black umbrella, it seemed that something had been embroidered on it... It was shaped like a shield, with a...

“ _Wait a second._ ”

A shield with a black tortoise on it – it was the coat of arms of the royal Genbu-ou family, was it not?!

Oh, now the unnecessary umbrella and the stranger's odd behaviour made sense, he must have stolen the umbrella from the royal palace and was trying to not be busted by Rei. The collapsed castle seemed like an ideal location for hiding stolen goods, too. It all made sense now!

“Hey!” he called out angrily at the stranger's fading back, “You! You beggar, you've stolen that umbrella, haven't you?! Stop right there, thief!”

And he was about to take off to pursue the cloaked stranger, when he suddenly heard a familiar voice behind him. It was Olivier calling for him.

“Your Majesty! Oh, there you are, we were starting to get worried. But who on Earth are you talking to?” Olivier made his way towards him, and if he hadn't been so preoccupied with shouting after the thief, Rei would have heard the crunch of his steps earlier.

Now that he thought of it, the cloaked person's steps had been completely silent in the snow.

“I saw someone who'd stolen the royal family's property!” Rei explained, pointing in the direction of the stranger. “He'll get away if we don't –“

“But Your Majesty,” said Olivier with an uncharacteristically dumbfounded expression, “there's nobody there – see, there aren't any footprints either.”

Rei threw a glance at the direction his hand was pointing in, then looked at the ground beneath. Olivier was right. The cloaked figure could no longer be seen, not even against the whiteness of the snow, and...

Silent footsteps, and no footprints...? Who had Rei just met – a ghost? He felt faint all of a sudden.

“Your Majesty,” Olivier said in a worried voice, “you must be tired after the long journey. Please come with me, we are only a short way from the royal palace.”

* * *

The palace was indeed close. However, it was rather peculiarly located, surrounded by one of the Country of North's lakes that never froze over – the palace stood as an island in the middle of the lake. The lake had a clear aquamarine hue, much like the snow that shone a white light of its own despite the darkness of the sky. It was a bizarre, unnatural sight. They crossed a bridge embellished with an infinite amount of detailed carvings to enter the palace grounds.

Rei was so worn out by both travelling and his strange encounter with the cloaked figure, the rest of the evening was just one overwhelming blur to him. As he greeted the parents of the current Genbu-ou – apparently they chose to call their son the king, and were now the former king and queen themselves – Rei felt like a robot that had been programmed to perform certain procedures at command. He was secretly grateful to hear that Genbu-ou himself was somewhere else right now; he truthfully did not feel like meeting another king as he currently was. He had never felt quite as happy to have Olivier around, as he explained his fatigue to the royal family and asked them to let him rest well before meeting more people. He was shown to a guest bedroom (which, if he had had the energy to take notice, hardly looked like a guestroom in its dazzling luxury) and he fell asleep immediately. The royal family of North was very amiable, and they were willing to postpone a welcome feast to the next day, after the meeting with the rest of the kings.

Right before his consciousness faded away, Rei suddenly remembered the stolen umbrella, and that he had forgotten all about it. Ah, that would have to wait until later.

* * *

Rei woke up the next day to the realisation that he would have to meet the other kings in only a few hours.

He was served breakfast to the guest bedroom, and he spent most of the morning and early noon getting ready for the formal meeting. He bathed, and had his hair treated and braided by Olivier, and then he was dressed into celebratory royal garments that had been brought just for this meeting. Rei didn't meet the royal family of Genbu-ou that noon, and while the parents had been very kind, he was also glad he didn't need to represent as Byakko-ou to them first thing in the morning. He wasn't sure if the other two kings, Seiryuu-ou and Suzaku-ou, had also arrived in the North yesterday. After all, he had fled the scene almost immediately. It wasn’t the most appropriate behaviour from a king, but at least he felt well rested now.

When the time of the meeting was approaching, Rei and Olivier were shown to a meeting hall: a room with its ceiling so far up above them, it made Rei feel dizzy after tilting his head so far backwards just to look at it. In the middle of the hall stood a long and narrow table, with four chairs prepared around it – the table was probably long enough to seat a good fifty people, so the chairs made the hall feel particularly hollow.

Nobody else had arrived yet. Rei had at least expected Genbu-ou to be there before him, but he was not. This Genbu-ou didn't seem very punctual, or maybe he hated these occasions just as much as Rei did.

Olivier, on the other hand, seemed overjoyed by the royal palace of the North. He had a passion for art and architecture – and food, a quality that Rei admittedly shared – and if Rei wasn't excited about this visit in the least, Olivier was on his behalf, too.

“Northern art is so very exquisite,” he sighed dreamily while standing next to Rei's chair, admiring some colossal paintings covering the tall walls. “The whole country has this bittersweet sense of melancholy to it, does it not? How artistic, how noble...”

Rei was fairly cultured himself, but paintings were something he just couldn't find any interest in. He preferred reading books over looking at pictures.

After a while, the hall's heavy doors opened again.

“Woaaaaah, look at this place! It's _huge_! Our town's tower could probably fit in here!”

This had to be Seiryuu-ou. A boy around Rei's age stepped in, and there was just this certain something about his presence that seemed to immediately fill the room, effectively leaving it less hollow. He was loud and packed with energy. His clothes – rather casual robes similar to common everyday outfits in the West, plus a royal cape that was dragging behind him in a manner that implied he didn't really even remember it being there – spoke for someone not too fussy about appearances or formality. He had dark indigo hair that blended into an azure gradient at the end of a loosely-tied ponytail. Following in Seiryuu-ou's footsteps came his knight who couldn't have been any more different from his master: a tall, stoic-looking man with facial features that reminded Rei of a hawk. Rei's first impression of him was that he had probably never told a joke in his entire life.

Rei stood up to bow politely at the newcomers. “Hello, I am Byakko-ou from the West. You must be Seiryuu-ou, correct? Pleased to meet you.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you too! And this big scary-looking guy is Ralf, don't mind him, he's not very social.”

Ralf did some sort of half-nod, half-bow, and Rei wasn't sure if it was him admitting to being scary and asocial or an expression of politeness. Or both.

“And this is Olivier,” Rei introduced his own knight accordingly.

Seiryuu-ou didn't seem to be taking the meeting too seriously, and Rei was a little glad to be engaged in some small talk with him for the next few minutes. The sense of awkward emptiness was gone, and he was happy to see that the other kings weren't as rigid and formal as he had feared.

Then the doors opened again. Judging from the looks of the young man stepping into the hall, Rei identified him as Suzaku-ou. And he could immediately tell this person wanted to be here even less than he did. Suzaku-ou, clad in a striking uniform of black and gold, wore such an apathetic expression that Rei feared even greeting him. He walked over to the table without stopping to look at his surroundings, and his knight, who had a rather solemn air to him (but was also surprisingly short, to the point of looking like a child), quietly pulled out his chair for him. Like his knight, Suzaku-ou had red in his hair, half of which was silvery blue.

Seiryuu-ou didn't share Rei's sentiments about the situation at all.

“Hi!” he called out to Suzaku-ou immediately, jumping up from his chair like an excited rabbit. “I'm Seiryuu-ou! Though I'd prefer if you called me Takao! Nice to meet you!”

Suzaku-ou gave him a tired look and didn't move an inch. “Suzaku-ou,” he said in a low voice, and that was all he said.

“I-I'm Byakko-ou,” Rei said hesitantly, knowing that a self-introduction was part of the etiquette, but this person didn't look like the kind to give a ruff about etiquette.

“Just one left, huh?” Seiryuu-ou then commented, looking curiously at everyone else in the room. “Kinda surprising to see the guy hosting us here is late, isn't it? Usually I'm late for everything, but Ralf kinda dragged my ass here by force.”

Ralf said nothing, his hawk's eyes were set on the opposing wall.

“He wasn't around last night either,” Rei said, glad to break the silence caused by Suzaku-ou, “can't say I got the best of first impressions.”

“I've heard he's not the kind to be shy or anything, I wonder what's up?”

And as they were speaking, the doors finally opened one more time.

“My, I'm sorry to be late, but better late than never, eh?” came a voice from the door. It took a few seconds for it to fully sink in to Rei that he had heard that voice before. And then he realised where exactly he had heard it.

Rei gasped and jumped up from his chair in turn, with such force that Olivier had to grab the chair before it fell over. “You!”

Genbu-ou stopped in his tracks while walking towards them and turned his curious gaze to Rei. He wore the same sheepish smile on his childlike face as he had last night. “Is something the matter? Something wrong with my hair?” And he gave a pat to his poofy hair, blonde with blotches of black, before he made his way to the only empty chair left on Suzaku-ou's side of the table.

“What, you guys know each other already??” Seiryuu-ou asked in disappointment. He didn't seem content with this sudden turn of events, he had expected them all to be on the same line.

“Hmm, just a little bit,” Genbu-ou replied mysteriously. His knight, who also had fair hair of the curly sort, let out a dramatic sigh while he took his place next to his king's seat.

“Your Highness, have you done something unnecessary again? I don't even know why I help you with sneaking out of the palace anymore...”

“Because it's fun, Giancarlo, that's why,” Genbu-ou said.

While the rest kept exchanging such harmless words, Rei's face had turned bright red. But as much as he would have wanted to demand for an explanation from the young king of the North right there and then, he was forced to contain himself as the former king and queen stepped into the meeting hall.

“I am so very pleased to finally see you all here together,” the former queen said and bowed politely at the table. “I am sure you already know, but the purpose of this meeting is to discuss the state of current cooperation between all the divine lands, and to help you as the current kings to find your stance in that cooperation. And, of course, for you young ones to get to know each other. I hope Byakko-ousama has regained his health all right?”

As she suddenly addressed Rei, he quickly sat back down and hung his head in slight shame, his face still red. “Y-Yes, I feel great now, thank you.”

“You don't look great at all, Your Majesty,” Olivier whispered in his ear.

“ _I called him a beggar,_ ” Rei whispered back in a hoarse voice and flailed his hand as if to shoo a mosquito off his ear.

* * *

Once the fairly political and uneventful meeting was over, the kings were invited to the welcome feast in the main dining hall of the palace. Seiryuu-ou zoomed out of the meeting hall as soon as he heard of the promise of food, Suzaku-ou followed him with his knight Johnny (and Ralf who often got left behind) walking so stoically that they could have been participating in a march, but Rei – he ran after Genbu-ou as soon as he was out of the hall, shouting after him.

“Wait! Wait, I'm not done with what happened yesterday!”

Genbu-ou stopped and turned to look at him with an innocent smile.

“Nothing much happened though?” he said calmly. “I told you I was just passing by, I offered to show you the way to my palace. You're pretty wary of people you don't know, aren't you? That's not how we roll here in the north. People have to share their warmth, or else the cold will get them.”

Rei, a little out of breath from fury alone, only stood there staring at the other king, trying to find the right words to say. But as he tried, he realised that what Genbu-ou was saying was right. Genbu-ou hadn't told him a single lie; it was Rei who had jumped into the conclusion that someone dressed the way Genbu-ou was last night had to be suspicious. Rei would have recognised him for his hair, like Genbu-ou had recognised him for his, but the hood had covered all of it. But it's not like Genbu-ou wasn't allowed to wear whatever he usually did while walking around in his own country. The dark cloak had a completely different air from what he wore now: today he actually looked like a prince, with a dandy little outfit that included a cravat and a sash. It also explained the lack of footprints, it wasn’t strange for Genbu-ou to be able to do such with his magic, and his knight _had_ mentioned that he had snuck out of the castle without permission...

Rei sighed, then bowed his head at Genbu-ou. “I'm sorry I was so rude towards you. I didn't even ask who you were, I just made rude assumptions.”

“Oh geez, you don't need to apologise to me,” Genbu-ou said and patted Rei's shoulder. “I admit I was fooling around with you a bit. It wasn't fair of me to not take my hood off. But the whole situation was just so amusing to me.”

Rei felt his cheeks grow a bit hot again. He didn't really like being made fun of.

But, it was now clear to him that this person wasn't malicious in any way. Genbu-ou’s words sounded sincere and his smile was genuinely friendly, it didn't have any ill intent behind it, despite him obviously having a knack for acting silly. And that's why Rei couldn't help laughing all of a sudden.

“You're right,” he said, “now that I think of it, it's amusing. I accused you of stealing your own umbrella, didn’t I?”

Genbu-ou wasn't laughing himself, but he looked so very content with seeing Rei do so. He hummed in chipper agreement. “It was pretty funny. But I'm getting really hungry here, so let's just get going already – our food isn’t as cold as our weather, I promise.”

As the two kings left the hallway in newly found harmony, their knights poked their heads through the meeting hall's doorway in unison.

“I'm sorry that he's like this,” Giancarlo, Genbu-ou's knight, said apologetically. “My king is really spoiled and a huge troublemaker to everyone around here and I have to admit that's partially my fault.”

“But that's the first time I've seen anyone make mine not take himself so seriously,” Olivier commented in awe.

And then, they left their hiding place to follow the rest.


	5. Chess player AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Characters:** Rei  & Max, but Takao and Kai also ...exist  
>  **Pairing:** Rei/Max
> 
> Rei, the junior world champion in chess, has a fateful encounter in a tournament final.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my only explanation for this is that i just really like chess?

The winner of the latest Eastern Asia Youth Chess Championships... Kinomiya Takao. A newcomer who suddenly appeared on the scene like a storm, sweeping everyone off their feet with a series of amazing comeback victories. He always stumbled during his games, and he clearly wasn't the greatest of tacticians, but it seemed that his excellence lied in psychological warfare. A dark horse who ended up winning the championship with what seemed like sheer willpower alone.

Or so Rei had read in the newspaper that morning.

Not a great tactician? Psychological warfare? This Kinomiya Takao would need to take a giant leap forwards if he wanted to hold a candle against the top of the world tournaments. And, without a doubt, he would be qualified as the Japanese entrant in the future.

Rei had wasted all too much time dawdling around the hotel's breakfast area that morning – he would have been better off using that time meditating back in his room before today's match, instead of reading the newspaper and the like.

It was the fifteenth and final day of the annual World Junior Chess Championship tournament. The last and decisive day. The most important round of the tournament, the one that would decide whether Rei would take the second consecutive championship or not. It was rare for someone to win twice in a row – in the Junior Championships, the largest tournament for players under twenty years of age, anyway. Annual tournaments for young people were fickle and saw more variety than their biannual adult counterparts, which made it possible for some dark horse to win the Youth Championships, too. Well, Rei didn't particularly have any opinion on whether that was a good or a bad thing.

All he needed to do was keep his cool, focus, and play well.

Despite his young age, Rei had a solid background of hoarding prizes from Chinese youth tournaments as well as the World Youth Championship and the Cadets Championship – and last year, the Grandmaster title in the Junior Championship. The youth and cadet tournament had several categories for players of ages under eighteen, sixteen, fourteen and so on; the junior tournament was for all players under the age of twenty and crowned only one winner, a Grandmaster, just like the real World Chess Championship.

As a child, Rei had initially been taught to play xiàngqí, a Chinese game much more popular back in his home country; but chess with its refined, uniquely shaped pieces was love at first sight forthe young Rei. He was a fast thinker and had amazing concentration skills once he set his mind on something, and he also had an outstanding memory, making it easy to memorise game patterns he once saw and then use them for his advantage. This all granted him natural talent in chess. But despite his skill, he had a bad habit of easily losing his temper and becoming indecisive once his focus wavered. Also, he was just a tad bit too sentimental. These traits often became his worst enemy in important matches, much worse than the actual opposing player.

Keep your cool. Focus. Play well.

What did it even mean to become a chess champion with sheer willpower? Who was that Kinomiya Takao person, really? Did he actually have some hidden genius within him, or did he really win game after game with nothing but luck and persistence? Real life wasn't some shounen manga, damn it.

_Focus._

Rei shook his head in an attempt to shed all and any unnecessary thoughts. He was doing it again: he was letting his mind wander in the middle of a game. This always happened when he started to get too nervous in an important match – at the worst time possible, in other words. It would be difficult to defend his championship in this muddled headspace, he had to focus better.

Rei lifted his gaze from the checkered board, sneaking a peek at his opponent who was deep in thought himself, but unlike Rei, hyperfocused on the board. Definitely. This person made it look so easy.

Mizuhara Max, the American entrant of the tournament. Dubbed the American chess prodigy of the century, he had won his first championship at eight years of age. However, he had mostly participated in national competitions in the States, hence this was the first time Rei was playing against him – the first time meeting  him face-to-face, and it happened to be on the final round of the tournament.

Being against someone so perfectly calm was much more unnerving than Rei could have imagined. It wasn't just that Max was calm, he was utterly unfazed, even at this stage of the competition. He had a relaxed aura around him, and while deeply focused on the board, he was smiling – it was subtle, but he definitely was sporting a smile on his childlike face.

He had fair hair just slightly on the curly side, sky blue eyes, and a small, freckled nose. Frankly, in his solemn, focused calmness, he was like an angel.

_Focus!_

Max made his move. Queen from E3 to G5. It now threatened several of Rei's black pieces, but was also directly on the path of Rei's queen. But if Rei captured his queen with his own, Max would capture _his_ queen with a pawn next round. Both queens were to be eliminated from the game. But then...

Alas.

Early into the game, it had become clear to Rei that Max was the most calculating of players, his every move so confident that it sent chills down Rei's spine. Chess was, of course, strategic by nature – but Rei rarely faced anyone _this_ many steps ahead. Max read him like an open book. His well-calculated moves hit like waves that washed over everything they came across. He stepped back and lay low for a while, then went for a series of aggressive moves that slowly but steadily destroyed Rei's line. Rei had heard about Mizuhara Max being a genius strategist, and he wasn't called a prodigy for nothing. There was nothing more intimidating than calm confidence.

Especially when it was delivered by someone with such a soft presence.

Rei felt a bead of sweat roll down his face as he captured the queen. Max made his next move. Rei's eyes wandered around the checkered board for a moment, looking for a way out. And then they strayed off again, back to the boy on the opposite side of the board. Max blinked at him when he noticed his gaze, then gave him a gentle smile.

Rei's heart skipped a beat. He darted his eyes back to the board.

 _Keep your cool, play well._ But it was becoming too late to do either anymore.

And yet, as Rei felt the title of the Grandmaster slip away through his fingers, he didn't feel remorse. He was disappointed, of course, at his own inability to defend the title for longer than a year; but it was the most refreshing match he had played in the entire tournament. Max's way of playing was so different from everybody else, Rei couldn't not admire it. Max was calculating, but he wasn't vile. He was strong, but not aggressive. And as he stood up, bowed his head and reached his hand over the checkered board, he was still smiling.

Rei answered with a smile of his own, taking Max's hand and shaking it firmly.

It wasn't too bad to pass the championship to someone this charming. His heart hadn't raced this much during a match in a long, long time.

 

* * *

Rei could not get Max out of his mind.

Whenever he played against someone, he thought back to that cunning yet incredibly gentle air surrounding Max during their match, that thoughtful, calm silence preceding his every move. His pale fingers moving across the board. That brief touch of his hand, and his smile that Rei felt in his very core. It was a soft, warm feeling, but brisk like a summer rain.

In his dreams, Rei held onto that hand once more. He felt Max's fingers under his touch, and then his soft, fair hair, and...

It was bad.

Rei already knew it was bad, but he officially decided so as he found himself spacing out while pouring tea one morning, half of it as a puddle on the table next to the cup.

He looked up everything he could find about Max online. He was a year younger than Rei; he was from a half Japanese family and travelled back and forth the two countries quite a lot; he was also skilled at handicrafts, and he apparently enjoyed listening to music while playing, saying that it helped him concentrate. Just like Rei, he meditated before matches. He had learned to play chess from his mother. His Facebook timeline had a lot of photos of his dog.

No mentions of a girlfriend anywhere. That was a positive.

Rei felt like a pathetic stalker, though.

 

* * *

That year's World Youth Chess Championship tournament was getting closer. It wasn't quite as intense a tournament as the Junior Championship, as the winners weren't awarded a Grandmaster title – simply put, it didn't feel as serious without the title on the line. This was the last year when Rei could participate in its U18 category. Then, he would have two more years to play in the Junior Championship. And from there onwards, it would be the real deal in tournaments for adult players.

The Youth Championship was held in Tokyo this time. It was a custom that the host country could pick two entrants, while other countries only had one; however, players with outstanding success in recent official tournaments got a free pass into the next championships, and were also seeded into the tournament so that they didn't need to start from the very bottom.

Rei's sole drive to participate was to get to play against Max again. He didn't care about winning a championship anymore. All he wanted was a rematch with Max.

However, this time he would also get to witness the plays of Kinomiya Takao in person, and he admittedly was rather curious about this amateur-gone-champion.

 

* * *

Rei stared at the screen displaying the results of the 12th tournament day.

Max had played against Kinomiya Takao on round nine, and lost. Now he didn't have enough points to be paired with Rei on the two last rounds anymore.

Rei bit his lip, clenching his trembling fists.

Really, who was this Kinomiya Takao, anyway?

 

* * *

Revenge. It was all Rei could now think of – he needed revenge against this Kinomiya person. He didn't care if he won the championship or not, but the disappointment of his only goal in this tournament slipping out of his reach had quickly turned into rage. Rei knew he was letting his emotions control him all too much, but he couldn't help it. He was too long gone now. Too devoted to the person he wanted as his opponent.

On round ten, Rei was playing against the other Japanese entrant, his name was Hiwatari Kai. Rei had read about him on the news before... but what exactly did they say about him again? Rei tried not to let his mind stray into reminiscing the contents of the papers; he really, really needed to focus on the game right now, keep his cool, focus, and play well.

 _Ah,_ he thought fifteen minutes after the beginning of the match, _now I remember._

The papers had called Hiwatari Kai a ruthless player, unlike anything seen in the Japanese chess league before. He was eccentric like Kinomiya Takao, but the polar opposite of him; he was an aggressive player who destroyed his opponents systematically, and _fast_. He didn't seem like much of a strategist, and consistently seeked out the fastest way to completely crush his opponent's confidence and fighting spirit. He almost seemed bored with most of his matches, as if he was only playing to be done and over with the game as fast and efficiently as possible.

Rei had already lost. There was nothing he could do, not when he wasn’t prepared for such a ruthless beating. He hunched over the checkerboard, bowing his head at his opponent, his eyes stinging from hot, bitter tears.

 

* * *

“Oh, Kon Rei-san,” the hotel receptionist called out to him while he was walking past, on his way back to his hotel room later that day. “There is a message for you.”

“A message?” Rei repeated, raising his dark brows. The receptionist handed him an envelope that, indeed, had his name scribbled on it in round handwriting. He fiddled it open anxiously. It was a letter, written on a single sheet of paper.

Rei hurried away from the reception counter to read it through, his heart beating at an increasing rate; and by the end of the letter, it was hammering against his chest so hard he thought it would jump right out any second.

“ _Ni hao, Rei.”_ It was written in Latin alphabet, a star drawn at the end. _“That's all the Chinese I know, sorry~_

_Maybe you're weirded out by me writing to you like this – it's my selfish wish to get to talk to you again, after all. The chances of us meeting in this tournament are pretty slim now and I didn't know how else to contact you._

_You see, you probably had no idea, but you left a lasting impression on me during our game in the junior tournament. I hope you aren't too mad at me for snatching the title from you.”_ A small doodle of his apologetic face. _“I'd been following your games for so long, and I felt like you maybe weren't at your best that day. Even so, I really admired your efforts. I hope that doesn't sound like I'm just mocking you, I really mean it. Even while struggling, your form was still so beautiful. (Is that too cheesy?)_

_Even if we can't play in this tournament anymore, I'd love to have a fair rematch with you anyway, one where you don't need to be anxious about defending a title or whatever it was that worried you last time. Maybe this sounds like pretentious nonsense to you, but if you happen to agree, come to the terrace on the east side of the hotel tonight at 10pm. (I hope that's late enough for there to not really be others around, because that would be awkward.)_

_Your friend and number one fan,_

_Mizuhara Max.”_

 

* * *

By ten o'clock, the hotel's hallways were indeed very quiet, and very empty; most people wanted to get a good night's sleep before the final day of the competition and had quietly retreated behind closed doors. If Rei cared at all about the tournament ranking, he would have joined the rest now. Instead, he wandered through the corridors and the mostly deserted lobby like a ghost. There were a few people sitting in the lounge area near the hotel's east-side entrance, but it was still quiet out there, with people mostly talking in whispers, muffled by the calming jazz that played on low volume. Rei hadn't ever really walked around a hotel at such a late hour before. He was the hard-working type who went to bed early and got up equally early every morning.

Rei stepped through the doors and was met by the cool breeze of the early night, his loosely-tied braid swaying behind him as he walked over to a lone figure standing on the terrace, his back turned to the doors. Max was looking at the darkening dusk of the sky, and as he turned around, the last remnants of daylight reflected in his blue eyes, making them shine unusually bright.

“Good evening,” he greeted politely, but wore his whimsical smile. “Glad to see my silly letter didn't scare you away.”

Rei had stopped a few steps away from the other boy.

“Not at all,” he said, much more calmly than he felt inside. “It made me really happy. The letter.”

“It did?”

“I wanted to see you, too. That's actually...” Rei hung his head slightly. “The reason why I came to this tournament...”

Max was holding a checkered case against his chest. He lifted it up, for Rei to see. “This is my self-made chess set. How about it?”

Naturally, Rei had no reason to object.

They sat down on the dimly lit terrace, and Max opened the case that was also a chess board, folded in half. The insides revealed a beautiful, uniquely designed set of pieces; Rei couldn't even imagine how much time and dedication making them by hand had taken. Not only were their shapes incredibly intricate, but unlike the wooden brown pieces used in the official tournaments, the black set was indeed beautiful pitch black, and the white set so brilliantly white that it seemed to shine in the dusk surrounding them.

“You really made these yourself?” Rei gasped, bringing a couple of random pieces closer to his face. “I love them – I've always liked sets that actually are coloured black and white the best. It looks so much more elegant.”

Max smiled again. “Same here. The contrast looks great, doesn't it? Thank you, it's the best set I've made so far, I think.”

Rei silently thought to himself that he'd want to see all of them, someday.

They set the board between them and put the pieces in their right places. In silent agreement, Max picked the black and Rei the white pieces, as if both of them had imagined this moment several times before, knowing exactly what to do.

But unlike last time, or during any of his tournament matches so far, Rei found himself feeling at peace. His heart was still fluttering, but this flutter was pleasant, inspiring... warm. His body felt light, and he could see the brilliantly black-and-white board and its beautiful pieces so clearly before him, it made him realise that at some point, he had possibly lost this clarity of mind while playing chess.

And despite them chatting away while playing, his focus didn't waver this time.

“That Kinomiya Takao was really something else,” Max said while moving a black pawn forward, “I've never played against someone like him before. I think everyone else feels the same, and that's how he wins all his matches. Nobody's prepared against him. But his actual chess really needs polishing; he won't have much to fight with once everyone's seen him play. His style needs variety, more patterns.”

“It's a bit crazy for an amateur to beat a Grandmaster,” Rei admitted, moving a white pawn in response.

“It is. Well, I guess he is an East Asian champion, though. But who knows for how long – that Hiwatari Kai you were against today is probably gonna eradicate him, don't you think?”

Rei frowned at the thought. “Probably. But he's pretty much the same – a one trick pony. I guess they're going against each other in the final match tomorrow. I can't even imagine how that's going to go, frankly.”

“Some exciting times we are living right now.”

“Yeah.”

They fell silent for a moment. The pieces, felted at the bottom, didn't make a single sound against the board.

Then, after moving his rook, Rei straightened his posture and looked at Max with calm determination. “Have you really followed my games from before we even played each other?” he asked.

Max returned the look with another subtle smile.

“I told you,” he said, “I'm your number one fan. I saw the game last year, when you became a Grandmaster.” He let out a whistle. “I thought, that's the most graceful player I've seen in my life.”

Rei’s cheeks were feeling a tad warm.

“I never participated on international tournaments before,” Max carried on while idly moving another pawn on the board, “but after that I just had to. My mom coaches a junior team in the States, so I've really just played there all my life. She didn't really get it when I said that there's a Chinese player I just have to get to play no matter what. I looked up everything I could find about you, but there wasn't really much in English.” He stuck the tip of his tongue out. “Sorry for being such a stalker.”

 _Ah_ , thought Rei.

“It makes sense you'd want revenge after I took the title from you,” Max then concluded.

Rei moved a pawn of his own, setting up a pattern for a bunch of pawns to potentially capture each other, curiously wondering whether Max would go for it or do something unexpected instead.

“No,” Rei said, “I didn't want to play against you for revenge.”

Max put a hand on his chin, his eyes systematically scanning the board, clearly calculating dozens of possible patterns in a matter of seconds.

“Really?” he asked.

“I wanted a rematch because I couldn't stop thinking about you.” Rei leaned a bit forward. “Max, if I win this match, will you go out with me?”

There it was, laid right out on the table, or rather, the chess board.

For the first time, Rei witnessed Max’s eyes widen in surprise. Looking completely thrown off, he was frozen in a visibly dumbfounded state for a while.

He hadn't expected it at all. _Great._ Rei's heart beat just a little faster again.

Max grabbed his queen and placed it in the middle of the set of pawns. A totally nonsensical move that early into the game, like a stray wave on the calm sea. His expression had melted into a curious smile.

“And what if I win?” he asked cunningly.

Rei inhaled loudly. He had no answer to that question.

“If I win,” Max then said, “let's see... I’ll make you treat me to my favourite burger place tomorrow. If you win, we'll go wherever _you_ want. How's that?”

“Ah...”

Rei breathed out. He suddenly felt very light in his head and in his heart, and as he raised a hand to make his next move on the board, a wave of warm determination washed over him; he felt like he could do anything, like everything was possible, like there were no heights he couldn’t reach with his fingertips. This would be his best play in ages, the starting point of something new.

“Let's do it.”


	6. Flower shop + fake dating AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Characters:** Yuriy with Rei  & Max (and a couple of other mentions)  
>  **Pairing:** Rei/Max
> 
> Yuriy is a judgmental flower shop worker who gets a couple of very puzzling customers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i saw a tumblr post saying that the four horsemen of the apocalypse are a coffee shop AU, a soulmate AU, a flower shop AU and a fake dating AU, and i hadn't written a reimax oneshot of the latter two yet, so. i knew what to do.

Yuriy worked in a flower shop. He didn't actually know very much about flowers; it was merely a part-time job in a tiny shop with a surprisingly big cash flow.

You see, the shop happened to be standing in a very lucky spot next to a large campus, and astonishingly enough, flowers appeared to be the newest fad among students. This sounded horribly old-fashioned to Yuriy, but then again, everything retro seemed to be cool these days. All such things were aggressively irrelevant to him, but nevertheless, the job paid well and plants weren't half bad for company, actually. It took him a while to get used to the potpourri of scents and aromas within the cramped space, but he hadn't expected anything else from a flower shop in the first place. He found himself enjoying the composed chaos of the shop, the way the plants appeared to be all over the place at first glance, but in reality, each and every plant had its own defined spot. Except for the vines that were running rampant across the walls and ceiling and pretty much everywhere; those actually were all over the place.

Most of the customers were students – teenagers, even. They bought flowers like fashion accessories, carefully evaluating whether a particular colour fit their outfit or not; girls walked up to the counter, shyly asking for flowers that would get the message through to their crushes; guys often went straight for the generic red roses, not knowing any better. Yuriy inevitably learned more about these bizarre trends by closely observing the customers: currently, it seemed popular to leave a single rose in someone's locker at school, and each colour carried a different message – the more intense the colour, the more serious receiving one was. White and yellow were very neutral and friendly hues, light pink carried a hint of tender feelings... and other such garbage. Yuriy didn't know a rat's ass about flower language, but he had printed a list of meanings he had found on the Internet and snuck a peek at the list whenever a customer asked for help. People were immediately fooled into imagining that he actually knew what he was talking about. It was hilarious. And who would have thought that flowers made a lot of money?

It was some crisp yet sunny day, early afternoon when Yuriy's typical shift took place. On regular days like this, having one worker at the shop was enough; he would go around watering plants he didn't exactly remember the names of (in his defense, he was steadily improving, whether he wanted it or not) or do some cleaning... or put new porcelain animals on display in the shop window. He understood that the animals were for gardening, as the shop was also selling gardening tools and accessories, but he had no idea why anyone would buy a stupidly expensive porcelain deer for no real purpose. Every now and then the door would open and another student – or two of them, or three, or four – barged in. Honestly, the majority were women, but it was better not to stereotype people. Of course, men bought flowers too. Sometimes.

A group of girls had just bought a bunch of those colour-coded roses to be put in the school lockers (yellow for friends, pink for crushes, bright red for partners… darker hues for arch nemeses) and Yuriy was sweeping the floor clean of mould that had somehow found its way there at some point, and then the door opened again and a rather young-looking guy stepped in. Blonde hair, big, blue eyes, a freckled nose; loose, trendy clothes and large headphones around his neck. A very unlikely flower-shopper. Yuriy liked to place bets about new customers inside his head, and his guess for this person was that he was here to buy a plant for his mother or so. He placed the broom against the wall at the back of the shop and prepared to face another human being after his short break.

“Hi,” the customer said, fast approaching Yuriy. “Could you help me out for a bit?”

“Sure.” That's what Yuriy was paid for, anyway. He took his usual stance behind the counter, with his crib sheet was at hand. The customer turned to face him, leaning his elbow on the counter. Laid-back, mellow, but a bit lost. And no sense of personal space.

“So, I need some advice for a particular situation,” the customer then began, idly tapping the counter with his hand. “I mean, not a _real_ situation, of course – hypothetically speaking, if someone was just pretending to be going out with another person, but they weren't _really_ going but it just needed to _seem_ that way to everyone else, what kinda flowers would get the message through?”

Possibly an idiot, Yuriy concluded his analysis.

“So you need suitable flowers for a date,” he stated, shooting his eyes at his notes about common flower-usage. People often asked about the same thing, but Yuriy didn't want to take any risks, as he still kept forgetting which flower was which. At least this person did ask and didn't go for the red roses, the golden retriever of the flower universe: they did their job but were a classic to the point of being a boring cliché.

“Not a _real_ date, it just needs to _seem_ like one. And only hypothetically.”

“Right. Well, tulips are a popular choice. Or if you'd like something flashier, orchids also work.”

“Yes, flashy is good, then it looks like a real date. I'll take the orchids, please.”

Yuriy didn't want to point out that if he was only asking hypothetically, he wouldn't have needed the real flowers either.

“Which colour? We have white, purple and pink.”

“Purple would look wonderful, thanks.”

While preparing a tiny bouquet of purple orchids, binding them in what he considered a suitably romantic wrapping, Yuriy couldn't not ask: “What purpose would this faux date be for, exactly?”

“Well. If the two people needed to look like a couple, you know? Like...” The blond-haired customer waved his hand, as if trying to come up with an explanation from the top of his head and was not at all describing the real situation he was in. A poor liar who thought he was cleverer than he was. “Like if one of them needed to prove he's not going out with someone everyone expects him to be. And he maybe wants to stop those idiotic rumours because she's related to him and it's just weird and people won't shut up about it. A reason like that?” He flashed an angelic smile in a very poor act to look convincing.

“A-ha.” Kids these days... (Although this person was most likely a young adult, much like Yuriy himself, but anyway.)

The blond kid got his orchids from Yuriy, paid for them and left the shop. And then Yuriy went back to cleaning mould off the floor.

* * *

A couple of uneventful days went by. Not much happened in the flower shop in general. Possibly the most exciting event of the week had been when some thoughtless girl had dropped a cactus off a shelf and broke its pot. The cactus was just fine, though. She decided to buy it as an apology and kept calling it “Pierce Hedgehog” while leaving the store with her friends. Yuriy got to sweep mould off the floor again.

His shift was nearly over one day when the door opened one more time, and through it emerged the same fair-haired boy who had bought the orchids. Yuriy rarely memorised the customers, not even the frequenters, only sometimes he remembered their faces or maybe their unusual hair or something like that – but this particular guy had somehow established his whole being into Yuriy's brain, and he remembered him as the false date orchid person immediately.

“Hi,” he said in the exact same way as previously. He was wearing the same headphones around his neck as well.

“Hello.”

“You probably don't remember, but I came to ask for flowers suitable for a date the other day? And you recommended orchids?” Yuriy was wishing he didn't remember. “Well, what other flowers did you recommend for the same purpose again? For a hypothetical date, I mean.”

“Tulips,” Yuriy said immediately and pointed at the linear flowers on their stand.

The customer gave the tulips a slightly wary look. “There's something kinda mature about them, isn't there?” he asked.

“Maybe.” Not really. But they surely were more composed, in a way, now that Yuriy looked at them.

“Whatever, maybe I'll take some anyway. As long as they look like something you'd give on a date. Not that it's a real date, but anyway. Do they come in some cute colour?”

“We do have them in pink.” The only colour Yuriy could imagine being cute.

“Oh, that sounds better, I'll take a couple of pink tulips please.”

And Yuriy wrapped the flowers in the same suitably romantic package again. He could only guess that the orchid date hadn't been enough proof for someone that this guy wasn't dating his relative.

* * *

Yuriy noticed an increase in the number of male customers within the next couple of weeks. Maybe these were people that had been receiving pink roses in the lockers or whatever, and felt a need to reciprocate the gesture now. Most of them were pretty clueless.

An equally clueless but also somewhat different kind of customer poked his head in one day close to the end of Yuriy's shift. He seemed wary, maybe a bit nervous, but had studious eyes and a curious appearance – it was obvious that he had never been to a flower shop before. He waddled to the counter like an anxious penguin. A very long-haired penguin, in this case; Yuriy couldn't not side-glance at the impossibly long braid hanging behind this customer. Yuriy had enough trouble with his own hair, hardly one third of this person's braid's length. This guy also had a rather athletic built and appearance in general – how was the long hair practical in any way, Yuriy had no idea.

“Hello,” the newcomer said politely. “Could you maybe help me find what I'm looking for?”

“Sure.”

“I need... Well, let's assume that I was going out with someone and I was invited to go meet that person's family... What kind of flowers would you recommend for such occasion? For the mother in particular. B-But I'm not actually going out with that person, of course, so I don't want the flowers to be too serious. Just a formality, but still believable? And I would rather make a good impression, of course.”

Yuriy tilted his head. This sounded familiar. It also sounded moronic.

“I’m sorry, did that make sense?” the long-haired customer asked after a short pause. Good manners, but a bit suspicious towards strangers.

“Not very much, but I understood the 'flowers for the mother' part.” Yuriy eyed his cheat sheet once again; he had no idea what he was supposed to tell this person, but he had recently added some prints on the language of flowers in his collections, and he quickly looked for something at least remotely fitting for this case. “How about... peach roses, or a champagne colour. They are very subtle and signal modesty and appreciation.” Or so this site had said at least.

“That does sound quite all right. Roses are always good, right?”

“Yes.” No, they were boring and corny, but the customer seemed relieved by this solution, so it was good enough for Yuriy who left the counter to go pick out some of the pale-looking flowers.

“Thank you so much, these are perfect,” the customer then said once Yuriy brought the flowers to him. “They're exactly what I wanted – they look respectable but don't really jump out at you. It would have been strange to bring anything too flamboyant when we are... not even... actually dating.” His cheeks gained a hue closer to the coral pink roses the shop had growing next to the champagne ones. “It's not like I will be meeting the parents another time.”

“Okay.” Maybe this sort of play dating was a new fad as well. Yuriy wondered if these people were getting some kind of kick out of it. Well, if it meant selling more flowers, he didn't mind.

* * *

Sometimes Yuriy's friends came to the shop to either mock him or keep him company or both at the same time. Jokes about Yuriy the florist got old pretty fast, though, so after a while Boris was the only one who still bothered to drop by, and Yuriy had a feeling that he came there to look at the porcelain birds on display, though Boris never admitted it. He seemed to be allergic to something in the shop, however, so Yuriy tried to tell him to stop coming there, or at least wait until his shift was over in the afternoon. He never even bought anything. Dumbass.

Whenever Boris didn't drop by, Yuriy spent his breaks sending him annoyed messages, mostly complaining about the customers. If the work day wasn't very busy, he'd keep sending them outside breaks as well.

That day he was plucking out dead leaves from plants around the shop, phone ready on his other hand, when he heard the door open and a customer stepping in, the only one in the last thirty minutes. Yuriy wasn't too enthralled to notice it was the same long-haired dude from several days before. Another nutcase too memorable to be forgotten.

_Oh shit, one of the fake dating weirdos came back,_ ” he quickly typed on WhatsApp before hiding his phone in his pocket and hurrying over to be the hard-working customer servant he was. Admittedly the customer didn't seem too happy either to notice that he would have to state his business to the same person again. He cleared his throat and greeted Yuriy in his polite manner.

“Hello. Er, I have this sort of strange situation in my hands and was wondering if you could –”

“Sure,” Yuriy interrupted him, because that would be his response in any case.

“Right. Okay. Well, um... Could you help me find some flowers that are... well, romantic – something other than roses, but... Something that would help with proving that I'm not just joking and would sincerely want to go out this time and... not just...”

“Not just fake it,” Yuriy concluded, because it was taking ages for this person to spit it out.

“Well... yes.”

No pseudo-fake flowers for the mother anymore, this guy had made progress; obviously a softie who didn't want to seem like one too much. Yuriy consulted his trustworthy prints below the counter once again.

“Daisies could be what you're looking for. White daisies are the symbol of purity, true love and new beginnings.” Reading it out loud made him feel like the best (or worst) of armchair philosophers. Nevertheless, the long-haired guy's face immediately lit up with hope, much like with the roses last time.

“Daisies?”

“A bouquet with different colours would make it a bit livelier.” The more flowers sold, the better.

“No, no, I'll take a bouquet of whites. Make them all white.” The customer was already fiddling with his wallet, looking borderline manic. The purer the message, the better, Yuriy deduced as he left to bind a bunch of white daisies into a big, round bouquet. Seemed like this guy had a lot of convincing to do. Yuriy couldn't not wonder if he had gotten himself into a similar situation as the one who had bought flashy flowers for dates before, the guy with the huge headphones – whatever came out of his idiotic attempts, Yuriy was almost disappointed that he might never find out. He wished the long-haired guy good luck as he handed him the bouquet over the counter.

* * *

And then came the rose-coloured lunacy of Valentine's Day. The tiny shop was so packed with people that it left Yuriy horrified. He had grown surprisingly affectionate towards the plants and felt sorry for the poor fellas when people bumped into their pots or squished their petals on their way through the cramped store. _Everyone_ wanted roses that day, one of the busiest of the year, and Yuriy was grateful that he didn't need to do his shift alone this time; he had enough work just handling payments at the counter alone. But it also meant being stuck there to witness people repeatedly bumping into the poor plants, and everything else inside the shop, too. Yuriy noticed that one of the porcelain birds that Boris liked was now lying upside down on the floor, the wire it had been hanging from had snapped. He quietly pocketed it just before his break.

When Yuriy returned from the break room, he spotted the blonde guy with the headphones in the store again. Like almost everyone else, he bought an arrangement of roses, most of which were deep red with some pink ones sprinkled here and there. That was the real stuff, Yuriy thought to himself, nobody would get the expensive bouquet just to show off a false partner to other people.

“Looks like it's a real date this time,” Yuriy had to point out to the blond once he turned up at the counter to pay for his roses.

“Wow, you remembered? Your memory is amazing!” the customer praised him, giving Yuriy a deeply impressed look. (Yuriy's memory wasn't that amazing, these people were just so memorably bizarre.) “You're right, we pretended to go out a few times, and then figured – why not keep dating for real? But just between you and me, I was actually smitten from the start.” He winked at Yuriy while taking the receipt from him, grabbed the bouquet and danced his way out of the flower shop.

People did such strange things, Yuriy had a hard time understanding them.

While waiting for the next customer to find their way to the cashier, Yuriy turned to idly look out of the shop window for a bit – it was a beautiful, sunny day, fittingly charming for the Valentine's, not that he cared for such things at all but anyway – and observed the boy with the headphones stepping out to the street. He was about to start walking to the right, but suddenly glanced over his shoulder and stopped in his tracks. He turned around, hiding the bouquet behind his back, as if it hadn't just been right there out in the open, and took a few short steps to the left with a wide grin on his freckled face. Several slow seconds went by. Then, the long-haired guy who had bought the daisies some time ago appeared to the shop window from the left. The blond pulled the bouquet from behind his back and handed it over to the other guy. The long-haired one looked amused by the gift and took it in his right hand, leaning forward to pull the blond into a clumsy hug with his left arm.

Yuriy, his red brows raised high, shook his head and reached for his phone. He opened the Neo Borg group chat and started typing.

“ _I think I accidentally contributed to the worst love story of the century?_ ”


	7. Bakeneko AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Characters:** Max-centric, Rei is kind of there, plus mentions of some others  
>  **Pairing:** none but can be read as a weird Rei/Max (what a surprise)  
>  **Warnings:** some disturbing description, debatable character death (I GUESS) and just overall weirdness
> 
> After a chain of strange occurrences, Max accepts the possibility that he's being haunted.

 

Max had always considered himself rather rooted in reality. He could take a ghost story or a few half seriously, if only to add some spice in life, but he certainly wasn't like Hiromi, who was a little too convinced by all the astrology nonsense she read in those strange old books of hers. To Max, that was a bit too much.

So it took him a while to accept the possibility that he was being haunted.

Max was overall a rather average kid. He had been homeschooled at young age, but had later on began to attend a school, the only one in the rural Japanese town that his family moved to from New York. The town was modest in size, and Max had appeared into that scene as a bit of an outsider; but he had a bright and charming personality, so it didn't take him long to gather a few friends around him.

Everything had gone smoothly so far... save for the accident early into his first semester at the school, about this time last year.. Max had bumped into a car with his bike and done a pretty nasty crash landing on the pavement. He took a blow to the side of his head, but it didn't leave any permanent damage. One broken arm and some stitches here and there. He did, however, have some rather strange visions for a few weeks following the accident. Hallucinations due to blunt trauma, or so he was told. He hadn't touched his bike since.

The community was small; everybody knew everybody, if not by name, then by looks; and if not by looks, then by family. Max hadn't lived there for long enough to have learned the names of everybody yet, so it was no wonder he didn't know every single person at his school.

There was one person who consistently caught his attention, though. A guy probably a year or two older than him, with the most gorgeous long hair that Max had seen on a person of any gender. It wasn't like Max had paid him much attention before, but he had seen him every now and then, here and there – in the crowded corridors, on the school grounds after classes, sometimes in the cafeteria. He was always alone, which, after a while, began to seem awfully lonely to Max; but somehow, he didn't ever seem to catch a glimpse of the person soon enough to strike a conversation with him. Every time, he managed to slip through Max's fingers like sand.

One morning, after just witnessing this mystery person disappear behind a corner in a swish of dark hair, Max turned to his friends to ask about the guy – who he was, which year he was in. But they only gave him a blank stare in response. None of them recalled ever having seen a student that matched Max's description.

“I'm pretty sure he attended our literature class last autumn,” Max had told them. “He sat in the back row. A quiet guy, always alone. Remember?”

“There really was no such person on that course, Max.”

“Are you sure that's not one of your... you know... the things your brain came up with after the accident?” Manabu sure liked walking on eggshells when it came to this.

“No! You think I'd make up an entire _person_? Besides, I haven't had any hallucinations in almost a year .”

Despite being so certain about his course, his friends' words did sink deep into Max's thoughts and wouldn't leave. He couldn't remember when he'd first seen the long-haired boy, but in retrospect, it must have been about a year ago. However, that was because he hadn't even attended the school for much longer than that.

But it really was a little strange to see someone who didn't appear to interact with anybody else, in such a close-knit community. Max had never heard him talk, either. Even in the literature class, Max hadn't witnessed him exchange a single word with anyone – nor anything else.

The thought was disturbing, but Max did his best to not let it affect him during the after-school bey club hours. He'd had the cleaning duty that day, too, so it was rather late by the time he finally threw his orange knapsack on his back and headed home alone, by foot as always.

Things had been a bit rough with their club lately. They only had four members, and unless they could get a fifth one soon, the school wouldn't allow the bey club to exist anymore. His eyes on the pavement, Max waded in a stream of thought while making his way home under the dim glow of the streetlights.

If only they could get Hiwatari Kai from class B to join – Max had heard that he was good at blading, but the guy was pretty intimidating and had an absolutely unapproachable air around him. And he was always hanging out with those Russian exchange students that had appeared out of nowhere. Max hadn't yet built up the courage to go talk to them; Takao had the courage, but the rest were well aware that he would end up saying something stupid to the gang and potentially get his ass whooped, so they had repeatedly stopped him from meddling with the Russians. What if they liked beys too, though? Maybe they could all join... Maybe the bey club still had a promising future after all...

_Huh._ Max's train of thought then came to its final stop with a completely unrelated note. _Someone's taking the exact same route with me. Funny._

He'd been hearing it for a while now. Footsteps echoing his own.

Max's home was located near the river, with no other houses in close vicinity, so the small road he took home was usually quiet, even more so at an hour this late. But someone had been walking down the exact same path as him, despite there being hardly anything but their house at the end of it. _Well, there's the neighbours with the cat._ Their house wasn't exactly next to Max's home, but close enough for the loose definition of neighbours here in countryside.

Max kept walking, his eyes still on the narrow road. He hadn't noticed while deep in thought, but it really was quiet that evening. The sun had nearly set by now, leaving the sky striped with the dusk of the approaching nightfall. There was no wind to rustle the treetops, no birds chirping, nothing. Only the sound of Max's own footsteps on the pavement, and the matching sound that followed.

_Followed._ What if someone actually was following him?

A sudden, violent chill struck down Max's spine, causing his hair to stand on end.

He stopped.

After a short delay, the steps also stopped.

He began walking again, slower than before. A momentary pause, and he heard the steps again, also slow – and distant through the pounding of Max's own pulse in his ears, now.

His insides contracting in a sickly way as if trying to crush each other, Max teetered back and forth on the idea of turning around to see who was following him. He wanted to know. But he didn't want to know. And he really didn't want to stop walking anymore. Should he take off with a sprint and run the rest of the way home? But maybe whoever was following him would run faster....

He forced himself to stop again. His neck stiff from fear, he glanced over his shoulder.

The street was dark. There was nobody there. The steps had stopped along with Max's own, too. Disappeared. Nothing but heavy silence.

Now Max took off to a run. The cold evening air whizzing past him and the sound of his own heart beating like a madman's in his ears and his throat and his chest, he could no longer hear the footsteps nor anything else. He ran all the way to the gates of his house.

The wooden fence now felt like a border between the outside world and the safety of home to him. Here nothing could hurt him.

Max leaned on the fence, catching his breath for a minute or two. He heard a familiar meow above his head.

The neighbours' cat was such a comforting sight; it was always – or often, at least – sitting or trudging along the top of their fence. It really liked coming over for a visit, despite the neighbours' house being some hundred metres away from theirs. But Max didn't mind. It was a pretty animal, with shining white fur and golden eyes. He was already used to finding it here when he returned home from school.

_I wonder what the cat's name is._

Then, once he wasn't panting his lungs out anymore, Max zoomed to the front door of his home.

* * *

From that night onwards, Max began riding his bike to school again. He made sure to always wear a helmet.

Determined to prove that the long-haired boy wasn't a creation of his broken brain, he spent the next several days keeping a vigilant eye on even a single glimpse of that figure so familiar to him. But he failed. Of course. Even if their school wasn't particularly big, finding a certain person whose class he wasn't even aware of was still no easy feat.

Strangely, Max was feeling like the person kept slipping right past him. Several times he'd think he saw him, but as soon as he looked again, he was gone.

This wasn't good. If anything, it endorsed the theory of this guy not being real.

One day, Max saw something else on the school grounds, through the club room's window: a bunch of students had gathered around something on the school yard. As he moved closer to the window, that something proved to be, for whatever reason, his neighbours' cat.

_Huh._ Well, the cat _did_ seem to hang outdoors a lot, what with how often it sat on the fence, too. Sometimes cats wandered pretty far from home, didn't they? And this was no big city. Maybe it wasn't so strange after all.

As Max stared at the group of younger students admiring and petting the cat, he noticed for the first time that the tip of its tail was black. Only the very tip. It wasn't all that noticeable, he thought in his own defence, since the cat had such a long tail and often drooped it on the side of the fence back at home – or maybe the tip blended into the surrounding dusk as Max returned home in late afternoon every day... Probably a bit of both.

Did cats usually have tails that long?

Suddenly, the cat turned to look at Max. No, not just look – to _stare_ at him.

For the second time in the last twenty-four hours, a shudder of raw fear shot right through him. It was a kneejerk reaction; he didn't know why, but the stare of the cat's yellow eyes bored deep into him, digging a primal sort of fear out of him. There was no reason whatsoever in it. He was simply scared of that predatory stare.

But he had seen this cat so many times. It had been perfectly friendly with him every time he met it sitting by their fence. So why...

“Oh,” Hiromi's voice suddenly cut through Max's thoughts, “doesn't that look like the cat you said you saw that day?” She had appeared by the window next to him at some point.

“What?” Max uttered, blinking.

“Pure white except for a dark tip of tail. I remember because the way you told us about it was a bit spooky.”

“Wha– I honestly don't remember ever saying something like that. Actually, that looks a whole lot like my neighbours' cat – but I didn't remember the tail.”

“Well, it was so soon after your accident, I guess you were still kinda out of it. None of us was really sure if you were telling the truth or just – well, anyway, you said a white cat came to you before any human did. Something like that. You were saying it like it was something important to you. You don't remember?”

Max wasn't sure... but now that she had told him about it, maybe he did remember a little, a long since faded memory that loomed somewhere at the back of his mind. He didn't remember telling the others, but the memory of the moment of the accident, which itself was nothing but a distant blur in his mind, was maybe coming back together just slightly. It was hard recalling what he had seen that day, but there was one particular sense perception that came through, apart from an otherwise numb feeling that he associated with that moment, and it was the feeling of a cat's tongue touching his skin.

But how did he even know it was a cat's tongue? That seemed a bit specific for something he didn't remember clearly in the least.

More importantly, by the time Max snapped out of his thoughts and looked outside again, the cat and its stare were gone.

“Your neighbours should keep a better eye on their cat,” Hiromi then said. Max couldn't agree more.

Unable to get the eerie glare out of his mind, Max ignored the cat that afternoon when he returned home. He could see it on its usual spot on the fence, but he didn't dare look into its eyes. He was aware that it didn't make sense, but he was simply too afraid.

And as he went to shut the curtains of his window before laying down to bed that night, he realised to his horror that the cat was still down there. Its white fur shone brightly in the milky light of the full moon, making it easy to spot against the dark of the night from the second floor window.

Max quickly hid behind the curtains, feeling strangely paranoid. Something about this all was just off somehow. But he couldn't tell what it was. Other than that cat enjoying their house over its own way too much.

“Mama,” he said to his mother during breakfast the following morning, “why is the neighbours' cat always on our fence? It feels more like _our_ cat at this point.”

“Hm? I haven't noticed. Didn't know of anyone around here getting a new cat, either.”

“Is it not the cat of that family living in the nearest house?”

“They moved away some time ago, remember?”

Max froze in the middle of his toast.

“Does it bother you?” she carried on, not perturbed in the slightest. “If you see the cat a lot here, it could be lost. Its owners might be worried. Did you check if it has a name on its collar? Maybe an address, a telephone number?”

“It... It's got no collar.”

“That's irresponsible.”

Where had the thought of it being the neighbours' cat come from in the first place? It was an assumption that Max hadn't questioned even once. It wasn't _their_ cat, so it had to be one of the neighbours', right?

That day, Max felt like _he_ was the lost one around here. He rode his bike to school and fared exceptionally poorly in a pop quiz in class. Their teacher banned him from taking part in club activities that day and ordered him to go study in the library after school.

The bey club was just sad without him; all the blading came down to Takao and Manabu, because Hiromi was only their club manager. Self-proclaimed.

Thus Max made his way to the school library once classes were over. It was a strangely large one for such a moderately sized school; it had a somewhat European feel to it architecture-wise, or so Max had always thought at least, he was no expert in such things. The library had a large open reading area with a neat row of long, wooden tables, surrounded by shelves loaded with books of all kinds in every direction. Most of the seats around the tables were empty.

In fact, the whole library was rather empty. Or perhaps it was just sized so generously that the students present were scattered here and there, out of each other's line of sight and hearing. Max didn't like that silence. It felt unnatural. A library needed to be filled with the sounds of rustling pages and pens scribbling on paper, or else it didn't feel like a library to him.

He took seat on a table whose neighbouring one had a small group of people working on something together, talking in hushed voices to each other with their heads together. He preferred those low whispers to no human sound at all.

After placing his textbook and notes on the table, Max suddenly noticed one more person sitting by the table behind the one with the group. It was the long-haired boy. He appeared to be immersed in a book, sitting completely still.

Max refrained himself from immediately leaping over, now that he'd finally found his mystery person again. If the guy liked spending time in the library reading books, it was no wonder Max had hardly seen him lately. Max never came down here himself.

Maybe he could catch up to the guy in case he left his seat before Max did. Or then Max would go talk to him after, say, thirty minutes of diligent studying. Yes, either of those worked. Filled with new-found determination, Max lifted his textbook in front of his face, covering his entire vision with lines of text.

He was still slow at reading kanji. Back when they'd just moved to Japan it had been relatively easy to learn new ones, but turned out that the further he got, the harder it got. And there were so many kanji that he never seemed to really need.

Max's determination wavered just a little by the time he changed the page. And he thought, _just a little peek._ Maybe he should first go talk to that person after all? Or he should, at least, take a picture of the guy as a proof of his existence. Of course, Max had believed that he really did exist all along – he'd even shared a course with him, how could he _not_ exist?

Max lowered the book, placing it on the table, and glanced over at the other table. It was empty.

_Huh?_

He turned to look around the open reading area. No sign of anybody anywhere, apart from the quietly murmuring group by the table next to his.

Max was rather sure that he hadn't had the patience to keep his eyes on the book for longer than five minutes just now. And he hadn't heard the stranger leave his seat, or walk away. So where had he gone?

Max decided to ask the group next to him. There were four people, so surely someone had noticed the guy leave.

“We've been the only ones here all afternoon,” one of them replied, turning to their friends, “right?”

“Right. Nobody but us here before you arrived.”

* * *

Now Max was just a little willing to admit that he was being haunted. Not seeing hallucinations, but haunted – although it was appallingly true that he had probably been seeing the long-haired figure around school ever since he hit his head. But consistently seeing the same hallucination for a year in a row? Max preferred the option of believing in spirits.

“Long dark hair, you said?” said Takao to him the next day. “Classic _yuurei_. Except a guy, I guess. Why are ghosts supposed to be girls anyway?”

“Was he wearing white clothes, too?” asked Hiromi.

“No, a gakuran like everyone else. I told you, he looks just like any student.”

“So not really a _yuurei_ . Maybe just a _rei_.” *

“Very funny.”

It really wasn't funny to Max. He consoled himself by pouring an extra serving of mayonnaise on his lunch. (His father always made a bento for him.)

First the cat, and now this. At least other people had seen and even touched the cat, which made Max feel significantly less out of his mind.

But...

Ever since the day Max saw the cat at his school, he'd been avoiding looking at it, an ominous, nagging feeling pressing on him... He now felt that if he kept giving the cat the attention it wanted, something awful would follow.

Those golden yellow eyes. Max couldn't forget that creepy stare.

He rode his bike home as usual later that day. There it was again, a lump of white on that same old spot on the fence. Max jumped off his bike, locked it and took off his helmet, stubbornly refusing to do as much as cast a look at the fence. If seeing was believing, then maybe he could pretend that this strange animal didn't exist.

“Not even going to look at me?” said a voice behind him.

Max's blood froze in his veins, his skin breaking out in cold sweat.

_What?_

He had never heard the voice before. If he did, he'd certainly have remembered it.

_No way._

Slowly, Max forced himself to turn around to face his fears and look at the fence.

He faced exactly nothing. The cat wasn't there anymore.

How moronic a thought it had been, a cat speaking to him in a human voice. Maybe Max really was losing it after all. Maybe his mental state had somehow regressed, and now he was seeing and hearing things again, just like a year ago. It wasn't a pleasant thought, but every sign was pointing in that direction, he had to admit.

Sighing, Max turned around again to head towards the door.

The cat was sitting in front of him on the ground. It stared up at him, its yellow eyes wide, long tail swinging lazily from side to side.

“Why are you doing this?” Max said out loud, then strode right over the cat without looking back anymore. “Just leave me alone.”

He slammed the door shut behind him.

He wanted to forget all about it. This was ridiculous, and Max didn't want to cause worry for his parents, who had already caught onto something being a little strange with how unusually high-strung Max had been lately.

None of that could have been real. Cats don't talk. Ghosts don't exist. Max had always had a vivid imagination, and now it was playing tricks on him again. _Maybe_ , he decided, _if this keeps happening, I'll feign being sick and stay in bed for a few days._ Seemed like he really needed it.

But that voice he had heard outside.

He wanted to forget, but he couldn't get it out of his mind. Both because it was so inexplicably disturbing, and because of how pretty it had sounded.

* * *

After a good night's sleep, yesterday's worries felt so distant and insignificant. Max had breakfast with his parents as usual, was perfectly chipper as he normally was, and it was a Saturday with no classes. Instead, he texted back and forth with Takao for a while in the morning and they decided to go practise in the park at noon. Manabu had been interested in developing newer models of their beys for a while now, but needed some specific recordings for the blueprints. Max wasn't sure if he wanted to part with his old and loyal Draciel yet but, on the other hand, he could then give it a seat of honour in his room. All his older Beys were there, put together by him and his father who owned a trinket hobby shop. The old beys weren't very good, but they had sentimental value.

After lunch, Max put his green helmet on, took his bike and began his merry way in the park's direction.

He was zooming along the gentle curve of the narrow asphalt road's pavement. Then, the white cat appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the middle of the road.

Startled, Max steered his bike to the right to dodge the cat. It was a sharp turn, too fast for the driver of the approaching moving truck to predict.

After hitting him, the truck fell off the road and tumbled down the steep hill right beyond the side of the road.

The first thing that Max took notice of was that he couldn't move. What a familiar feeling it was. Almost as if nothing but a second had passed since the previous time he had been staring up at the blue sky without really seeing it.

Except that this was different. He hadn't hurt his head because of the sturdy helmet he now wore. After the initial jolt, his head was actually rather clear. But he definitely couldn't move, because he couldn't feel half of his body.

Max heard his own neck make a cracking sound as he turned his head to look around. He had been thrown several metres away from where he'd been; he couldn't see his bike anywhere near him. The day was sunny and clear, yet he found himself covered by a cold shadow. Was it the shade of the trees that lined the pavement? He couldn't move his neck anymore to turn his head and check.

He saw his own hand reaching out in front of him. The sight was weirdly familiar. Indeed – a year ago, he had been lying in this exact same position on the ground. Back then, though, the hand in front of him had been covered in fresh blood.

Max remembered now. It was strange, but now the memory came back to him so easily, he wondered how he ever forgot in the first place. While lying there just like this, the white cat with yellow eyes and a black tip of tail had walked over to him and licked the blood off his palm. He remembered how the cat's tongue had felt like, as if covered in tiny needles, and how its white face had been dyed bright red. How strange that he forgot about it.

The image of his own hand was becoming blurry. His instincts were telling him to stay conscious, though. Fainting here would be bad, Max somehow knew.

He blinked furiously for a moment. Something white had appeared in his field of vision. It was the cat, of course. It was sitting next to him again.

“You wanted to know why,” the cat spoke to him in the voice he had heard the previous day. It was a no-brainer; this was the cat talking to him. And in such a pretty voice, too, just like he remembered it.

Max blinked again to sharpen the image, but once his eyes came to focus again, the cat was gone. Instead, he saw the familiar figure of the long-haired boy in front of him, squatting in a rather strange, animal-like stance. He was no longer wearing the dark school uniform but a white garment that Max could vaguely recognise as Chinese by style. As Max stared up at the person he thought he'd seen so often, he realised for the first time that the boy shared the cat's eyes. He wore his hair on a long white ponytail with a tuft of dark hair at the end, and as he smirked down at Max's face now, Max saw a fine row of sharp fangs.

“Because I'm bound to your blood, of course,” the feline-like boy said, as if this was an obvious matter of fact. Maybe it was. Max couldn't find the strength in himself to question it, so it must have been so.

Max couldn't see much anymore. First blotches of white, then black spread out from the corners of his eyes, fading out the view of the cat-like face, the street, the sky. He couldn't hear much anymore, either. Only that irritating, high-pitched noise of his ears ringing, and it muffled all other sounds into a distant chime.

But he could still feel. With the still functioning half of his body, he could feel the sticky warmth of his own blood that gently poured out of his body. And he felt the rough tongue that scraped across his skin, tore his wounds wider open, gouged out whatever remained in him, until there was nothing left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bakeneko is a youkai in Japanese folklore, usually house cats that have transformed into monsters through old age or by ingesting something like oil or blood. Bakeneko can shapeshift into humans, speak human words, and place curses on humans. Cats with long tails were considered more likely to turn into bakeneko, and in some Chinese folklore white cats are said to be particularly good at bewitching people.
> 
> Yuurei (幽霊) are Japanese ghosts. The "rei" 霊 part in the word means a spirit.
> 
> Happy Halloween!


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